Hold Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand
by Catheryne
Summary: Klaus searches New Orleans for a way to bring Caroline back. Meanwhile, Caroline is caught in the mysteries of a life two thousand years ago.
1. Chapter 1

**Hold Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand **

Pairing: Caroline/Klaus

Rating: PG13

The amber liquid in the glass formed circular ripples as he rolled his wrist, watching the nothingness of reflection. The fire hissed and spitted in the hearth, lending an eerie yet homey glow to the room. Klaus could not think of a reason that he had a small suitcase packed, waiting by the doorway. He could take anything he needed by force, by cash, or by compulsion. It was not as if he needed to take materials things with him to sustain him on his travel. And yet he had spent the better part of his day in that ridiculously senseless activity, finding a bit of respite in the allowing himself the empty routine of pulling a sweater or two, bottoms and a watch and tossing them into the bag.

Anything was better, truly, than staring at the morose gazes, at the contempt laced with pity-mere lowly creatures as every one else he encountered were, they dared to take pity on him.

As if he could not extinguish the light out of each and everyone of them.

_Extinguish the lights._

_Until it was pitch black. Until the darkness._

_Until the world mirrored his soul._

His brother walked quietly, almost soundlessly, with the grace of centuries muting the crass sound of his soles hitting the mahogany floor. Yet Klaus registered the moment that Elijah darkened the doorway, knew his purpose for being there.

"We've been together far too many lifetimes, brother," Klaus said softly, without turning around, his voice gentle yet menacing. However, of all the creatures in the world, it was Elijah who would be the least threatened by Klaus.

"Many, many lifetimes, Klaus," Elijah agreed. "So many I know a handful have been seared from your consciousness."

The screaming, the incredible heat. Again with that forsaken heat- if he were not immortal he would have thought he was burning in hell.

"Then perhaps you should stay in Mystic Falls, brother," Klaus offered. "I see no reason that you should come with me with the old city." Truly, Elijah would be a mere nuisance.

"And what do you propose I do, little brother, drink scotch and roam the old manor while you scour New Orleans?" Elijah shook his head. "When I left that city I swore I would help see to it that it stays safe from your wrath."

"Do you truly think you can stop me?"

"I know I cannot," Elijah admitted. "But I shall not be true to myself if I did not even try." Klaus heard the way that Elijah cleared his throat, and even before he continued the noise was deafening to him. "So many lifetimes, brother, and I find I cannot abandon you in your tragedy."

Klaus downed the liquid, letting it burn down his throat, wishing he was not so old and powerful that he barely felt the sting. He longed for its pain now. "There is no tragedy. We have lived a thousand years, Elijah. I've brought down Mikael; killed our own mother." And he cursed his own weak nature that even now his eyes turned liquid. "We prevailed over Silas." Klaus took care to turn his gaze up, futile he knew. Elijah knew him well enough that his older brother did not need to see the tears to know. "If you insist on coming, wait in the car. I forgot one thing from upstairs." Klaus made his way to the staircase.

"Of course." And then, "But bear in mind, Niklaus, that I can do what needs to be done in New Orleans. You can stay here."

Klaus paused at the foot of the steps, then turned to Elijah. "Once you had seen me and called me a deranged monster," Klaus muttered. "If I stay you shall know the true meaning of the word."

Klaus climbed the staircase and strode through the long hallway. When he reached the door at the far end, he paused for a second. He licked his lips, then abruptly realized he was holding on to the empty glass. He deposited the glass on the floor, then pushed open the door.

Bonnie looked up with concern and fear, and Silas waved off the attention.

"You said you were leaving," she declared, a hint of accusation in her voice.

"So I am," he responded with a hard edge. "I have to, don't I? I'm going to have to find someone powerful enough. You've certainly turned out to be useless."

The witch tensed. She set her lips in a thin line. "Just do what you said you were going to do."

He refused to look at her, yet he was like a newborn compelled, with no control over his own will. He would be damned if he did so with the witch watching. "Leave."

"I'm trying to do a spell, Klaus," Bonnie insisted.

"Well, you haven't had much luck, have you? If she'd been this incompetent when Silas had you, those witches would have still been alive and you'd be gone." He kept his gaze on Bonnie, but she called, heavens, she truly did. In that form, in that state, she still called to him. Like the siren that she was, singing to him so he would just jump in and lose himself. For her. "Within the hour, I will be out of here. Be grateful you have some remaining use to me, and I've allowed you to live." And then a softer plea, but he would deny to the ends of the earth that that was what it was. "Just give me a moment please."

Reluctantly, Bonnie made her way out the room. Klaus waited in silence, standing at the foot of the bed with his eyes on the floor. When he heard the door close, it was only then that his gaze rose. His eyebrows furrowed, and he walked closer to the head of the bed. There she was, still, silent. One would think her Sleeping Beauty had it not been for the rough dryness of her skin, showing signs of desiccation. Whatever Bonnie had been trying, it was obviously bound for failure.

Like the child he often became through his stubbornness, he brought his wrist to his mouth and tore at his skin, bringing it to her lips and finding her mouth slack, hardened by the dryness. His blood, precious to most vampires, dribbled down messily down the side of her mouth, staining the white pillow beneath her head.

Klaus leaned low until his mouth touched her ear, "Now how would you see the world, love, when you wouldn't even open your eyes?"

He took a deep breath, branding the scent of her in his memory. Klaus straightened and brushed tentative fingers down the drying skin of her arm.

"I will find someone strong enough to pull you out, Caroline," he swore to her. "New Orleans is a den of witches powerful enough they can do quite a bit of damage when they band together. Somewhere out there is someone who can make Bonnie Bennet look like an amateur."

He slid his hand into his pocket, then drew out the diamond bracelet she had once thrown to his feet. He slid the bracelet to her wrist and locked the clasp, "There you go. Throw this to my face next time, love, if it still displeases you. I'd welcome another fight. I could use some distraction because hell if this isn't more terrifying than a piece of white oak making its way to my heart."

Klaus stood there for an endless second, waiting for a flicker, a tiny gesture, a split second where it was not dead silent. In the nothingness he pulled himself up and walked away from the bed. He opened the door to find Bonnie waiting outside. He met the witch's gaze briefly, and when the tiniest bit of expression registered in her eyes, Klaus looked away.

"Try not to get her staked while I'm away," he said, walking past her. "Tell me you can do that."

"I'm not stupid, Klaus," she retorted.

The name barely fell from her lips when suddenly he was on her, his fingers gripping her neck, his strength pushing her back against the doorframe. "Don't even get me started with stupidity," he warned her. "Because the lot of you that caused this are imbeciles." Bonnie's eyes widened at the snarling sight before her. She choked in his grip as her feet rose from the floor, her toes wildly feeling for the ground beneath her so she could release the pressure from her throat.

"Brother, you may want to put Miss Bennett down," came the quiet suggestion. "You have got to remember, the plan that Caroline took part in was as much her decision to take as anyone else's."

Klaus murmured low in his throat, then released Bonnie so she fell to her knees. "Believe me, I know." He turned his back on Bonnie and walked back down the hallway, past Elijah, and descended down the stairs.

**Three months ago**

There was not a lot he feared on earth, and despite of this-rather because of it-little gave him joy. He was the most powerful being awake for a millennium it seemed, so nothing seemed to faze him, amaze him.

Until her.

His explosion of light in an otherwise utterly black, black, black existence. All of a sudden, no matter what evil surrounded him or emanated from him was quashed in her presence. All of a sudden the grim line of his lips would melt under the pressing curve of his lips. All of a sudden, immortality was not an empty grandiose existence.

There was not a lot he feared, but he was terrified of her power. There was not a lot that he desired, but he yearned for her. He had crushed his own maker under his might, but he trembled deep inside his gut at the sound of her laughter. When she cut him down with a glare, he was the basest creature in existence.

He had been at his lowest when he struggled with the demon death that Silas embedded in his head, the pain at its greatest, his walls gone as he pleaded with a newborn for his life. And so even though it rebelled against all that he stood for, he had allowed that hybrid back into town. In the sidelines for the first time in a thousand years he watched her fulfill a fantasy, and she glided, smiled, leaned her cheek against the dog pup's shoulder.

"Most of the time, Nik, you baffle me," drawled his sister from his side. Klaus glanced towards his lovely sister, pretty and young and innocent in her prom dress, marking the night with a lie with her very appearance. "You can kill that insolent boy from this far, but there you are watching as if he were your son."

"Pride, Rebecca. Is that what you see?"

His sister cocked her head to the side, then regarded him longer. With a bit of wonder in her eyes, she answered, "Not quite." She pursed her lips. "I cannot quite put my finger on it." She followed Klaus gaze once more. "I do think you've softened on the little bugger. Pity it didn't happen before you drowned his mother."

The small smile on his face evaporated at the reminder. His gaze narrowed briefly, at that particular moment that Caroline's head rose and their eyes met. He straightened his back, silently and involuntarily bracing himself for the look of hatred he just knew she would hurl at him.

Instead all she did was smile—and all he saw was the impossible gratitude in them.

Rebecca flitted off back to the dance, leaving him all alone in the sidelines, wondering now why he was at a high school prom. Klaus shook his head and made his way out through the gym doors that, as much as Caroline had adorned it to disguise that they were in fact dancing on the hardwood floors of the basketball court, really just looked like gym doors with sparkly, twirly metallic silver ribbons taped to them.

Moments later he found himself standing in the empty parking lot, vacant enough save for the handful of kids stumbling out of the party and quickly driving away before school administrators spotted them. Lucky children that they were, Klaus found his appetite completely gone after the small spectacle inside.

"Hey."

The greeting was warm, cheery. And despite the foulness of his mood from Rebecca's little reminder—and he did not know why he even cared—he found himself smiling a bit before he turning around. His breath caught in his throat. Good thing he did not require breath.

"In what universe does a volunteer chaperone leave his charges unattended?" she teased. "I think someone spiked the punch in your absence."

"From afar you I thought you looked stunning tonight, Caroline," he said in praise. "I was not quite prepared to behold you in all your glory mere feet away from me."

To his great wonder, she stepped even closer to him. "I take it you like the dress," she said. If he did not know better he would think she was flirting with him. At the very least she was fishing for a compliment.

"You look divine."

"And what do you know about divinity, Klaus?" Surprisingly, there was no bitterness tonight in her question. Any other night those words would have been spat at him, because he was dark and she liked reminding him of it. He was terrible, and she repeated that over and over until she could convince herself.

He chuckled softly. "When you have lived as long as I have, love, no matter what kind of soul you have, you would have witness heaven and hell tenfold. So believe me when I say you are an angel descended from heaven." The corner of his lips quirked for a split second. "Tonight."

Again, she stepped closer, and she was mere inches from him now. If he raised his arm he would be able to reach her, pull her against him if he wanted. He could have a taste of that light by dipping his head the short distance to her moist mouth.

"What are you doing, love?" he prompted her, curious enough to ask, careful enough not to scare her away.

Her lips parted gently, giving him a peek into the dark crevice of her mouth, a glimpse of pearly human teeth, a tip of tongue. Klaus swallowed, and noted when her gaze shot to his throat as it worked. Silly vampires they were, standing this close in the parking lot of a school dance, breathing, swallowing, working up who knew what while careful not to touch skin.

She licked her lips as she searched for her words, and the quick action drew his attention. "Why did you come out?" he asked. Flailing, desperate, he said, "I don't want you to waste your time out here on my terrible self when you finally have Tyler back in town."

Her brows furrowed. "I-" She glanced back behind her towards the gym, the music blared each time the doorways swung open, the lights lively within. She looked back at Klaus, and for a moment he thought he saw a hint of fear before she blinked them away. "Would a terrible person have let his grudges slide and let someone back to town to attend a severely human—and yes, I admit, probably super shallow in the eyes of a man who's lived as long as you have—tradition like prom?"

"I didn't do it for him," he reminded her.

Caroline bit her bottom lip, then nodded. "I know," she whispered.

"Now hurry along, love. I don't give favors so easily. I suggest you make the most of it." Klaus was bewildered when she did not budge.

And then, like he was caught in a dream, Klaus looked down at the exact moment that her hand rose and rested on his chest.

"Again, I'm going to ask you, because if I don't get an answer I will fool myself into-"

Caroline met his gaze. "Maybe you're right," she said softly.

"I'm right about many things, love," he responded. "You'll have to be a little more specific than that."

"Maybe you're right," she allowed, "that I'm attracted to darkness."

"Caroline," he said, his voice drawing tight with warning.

"Maybe you've been right all along, because I've spent this entire night with Tyler wanting to feel a smidgeon of what I'm feeling right now," she confessed. "I don't know what this is."

"You know what it is for me," Klaus told her. "For your sake, Caroline, I hope this is not some sort of-"

Her hand on his shirt tightened, crumpling the cloth with her fingers as she gently pulled on him, "Seriously?" she exclaimed at him. "Months of your irritating double entendres and your silly idea of courtship, and you respond to me by threatening me?"

He shook his head, then rested his hands on her hips. Caroline's mirth vanished. He pulled her fast against him. "How would you have wanted me to respond, love?"

Her eyes narrowed. She buried her fingers in his hair and stood on the tips of her toes, then, for the first time in her entire life, she took the moment in her own hands and dove in for the kiss. Klaus caught her up in his arms and tightened his embrace, partially to support their balance. He answered as passionately back, deepening the kiss and parting her lips with an insistent tongue. She gave fully, allowing him access and her hot tongue slid against his.

Had he still been alive he would not have doubted that his blood would be pumping deafeningly in his ears now, or that he would be gasping for breath due to the length of time that he allowed himself to sink into that kiss.

When he finally lifted his lips from hers, he gazed down at her and her sparkling blue eyes, bruised lips, that angelic face fittingly framed by the golden halo of her hair. And then like a masochist faced with the prospect of sublime happiness, he voiced to face his greatest fear, "I've killed."

"So have I," she responded, the light in her eyes never dimming, as if she were looking at someone far more special than he.

"You know what I mean," he pressed.

She sighed. "I know, but I also know how I feel." She cupped his cheek in her hand, rubbed circles over the bone beneath his eye.

"Do you?"

After a few seconds, she gave a lopsided grin. "Alright, maybe defining it needs some work." She looked back at the gym. "What am I thinking?" She looked back up at Klaus. "Did I seriously think it would be this easy, like I could snap my fingers the moment I realized that I have feelings for you? There is a primordial vampire trying to enslave you; Your sister absolutely hates me!"

"Your—everyone-will kill me the first chance they get," he pitched in wryly.

"Seriously, you're going to make a joke about this? It will take months, years, before anyone-"

He silenced her with a peck on her lips. "Caroline," he reminded her, "we have an eternity."

That calmed her enough. She gave a small, sheepish smile. "So we do."

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you for your thoughts on my first. I look forward to your comments, as these TVD/Klaroline legs are new and rubbery.

Part 2

Very rarely would Caroline call herself a glutton for punishment. If there was one weakness she would admit to, it was probably going to have to be the weakness of loving. Really, it was love that brought her the most pain of all, love that she would believe was the source of her anguish so intense that it was even more terrible than her transition, or the guilt she lived with every day for every creature that died because of her. Loving Matt, loving Tyler, loving her father even-everything equated to blinding pain.

She could not imagine how much pain it was going to cause now that she had acknowledged to herself that Klaus stirred feelings in her that rivaled and stomped on her feelings for the boy she dared to love even though every second his lips brushed against her neck she knew she was one pulsepoint away from incomparable pain and a horrid, horrid death.

Even so, Caroline made her way to the large, yawning home where she had not long ago been called to dig the remains of a white oak stake that existed only in Klaus' mind. Caroline stepped off the car and at once saw the silhouette of a man standing with the light behind him. Her brows furrowed. That was not Klaus, she knew immediately. His form was already so familiar to her. His skin had been beneath hers as he screamed and squirmed from the pain of the invasive tool in her grip, and even as she made snide remarks about his heart she had marveled at the lithe power of his form.

"Who?" she whispered under her breath.

She stepped closer, and with her perfect vampire vision, Caroline honed in on the face hidden by the shadows.

Her breath caught in her throat. "Dad," she said softly. She picked up her pace, rushing forward, thoughtless, cautionless, running almost to him.

"Caroline!" she heard someone call from above her.

"Dad," she called again, as if he would vanish if she did not call his attention. "Daddy?" And then she was there, right in front of him, and even with her speed it seemed like a lifetime before she arrived. She looked up at him, and she knew her confusion was evident in her face. The door behind him swung open but truly, she could see nothing boyond his face now. Her father. Who loved her even as he despised everything that she was. Her father, who was everything that made her childhood, who had been her light. "Daddy, how are you here?"

Bill Forbes smiled, that small, simple smile. He held out his hand, and Caroline reached forward eagerly. She shuddered when his hand-it was warm-closed around hers. He pulled her tight to him and she half gasped and half sobbed at the sensation of being wrapped within his embrace once more.

"It's the veil, Caroline. The veil's dropped, and now I'm home."

"I missed you, daddy," she exhaled into the crook of his neck. Her mind whirled with the revelation, and even before she would concern herself with all that it meant for The Other Side to merge with her reality, Caroline moved deeper into her father's arms.

"Ah, sweetheart," she heard her father say gratefully. "Do you remember this?" He kissed her temple, the way he used to before dropping her off at school. "I've missed so much of your life, Caroline. You must know how much regret I've had watching you, knowing I was never going to tell you how much I loved you ever again."

And then her father was torn from her arms, thrown several feel and onto the ground. Klaus flew on top of him. In horror she watched, as Klaus unleashed his anger, turning with his fangs our and his yellowed hybrid eyes. "You will not touch her," he barked down at Bill.

"Klaus, what are you doing?" she demanded. "That's my-" her voice trailed off when she looked at him again, seeing the face of her father yet... the eyes. Realizing who it was that Klaus had attacked, and how he had dared to pull her out of the hallucination, Caroline reached for him. "Klaus, come on." She pulled at his arm. That creature had once had Klaus pleading on his knees, certain about death.

And then Bill-Silas-smirked from where he was. As Klaus allowed himself to be pulled away, Silas brushed himself off and stood, "Listen to the child, Klaus. She is wise, and rather soft. She reminds me very much of a time when I was young." Caroline shuddered to hear the words from her father's mouth. He stepped towards her, and leaned close. Caroline held her breath as his lips neared her ear. She watched Klaus struggle, hissing as he stood frozen in his spot. "Your face is not that of a stranger, and by the Spirits I shall know why," he promised her. And then he turned to Klaus. "The Cure," he reminded. "You had best hand it to me as soon as you are able. Every moment I wait, the more I find fine discoveries in your time, revelations I am loathe to abandon."

He turned around, and as he walked off Klaus found himself able to move.

"Silas!' Caroline called out.

In her father's body, he turned back.

"Please don't use his face again."

He turned his back on Caroline, and as he walked, she almost saw his form shift. She watched in amazement as the figure turned at the end of the walkway. When he turned direction, she saw him walk off bearing Shane's body. She sighed in relief.

An arm wrapped around her waist. She looked up at Klaus. "I'm scared," she confessed.

"So am I, love," he admitted. His hold on her tightened. "I was grandly pissed off until I saw you, and saw what he would be capable of doing to you. And that scared me." He nudged her towards the door of the house.

"What do we do now?"

"Call Elijah and tell him to bloody hurry up with the cure."

It was he who opened the door for her, ushered her in. She licked her lips, holding her breath as he helped her out of her coat. He stood behind her. Caroline spied the mirror in the foyer, so she observed his next intentional movement. His fingers slithered down the skin of her arms, and she smiled. It was the little things, really. It was the little things that set him apart. Maybe it was a problem with the times, when women equalled men and the small gentlemanly propriety often became an issue or a possible insult, and they were forced out of acceptable behavior.

However, after being a plaything controlled and compelled, after being the girlfriend of two boys-she could not even call them men-of this day and age, it gave her a thrill to experience the treatment of a real man.

"I swear, Caroline," he told her firmly, "that Silas will never have the chance to touch you again."

Promises like those, blanketing an entire world of possibilities never before considered, destroyed men. They were of the best intentions, but were rarely truly fulfilled.

"How can you know that?" she asked him, turning her head. The action brought her eyes level with his as he leaned to her from behind. From where he was, he inhaled needlessly. She could smell him. His entire fragrance wrapped around her, and it was heady, like she would pleasantly drown breathing him in. His warm breath made her lips tingle. "You can't promise that."

She could not voice her disagreement, but she knew to show her appreciation at the thought. Her gaze lowered to those lips. With a slight curve of her lips, Caroline reached back to touch his cheek. He responded by leaning deeper, briefly brushing his lips over hers. Caroline drew in a deeper breath, pressing back her body against his. He dropped her coat onto the floor, right there in the foyer, and used his freed hands to rest on her hips.

He released her lips, and his mouth were insistent, searching. She leaned her head back and his kisses found the curve of her neck. Caroline closed her eyes and surrendered to the sensation, bit her lip when his tongue rested on that point behind her ear. She reached back with a single arm and grasped his hair with her fingers. Her knees melted at the electric pulse shooting through her limbs. His hands moved from her hips to rest on her stomach, sending warm, liquid pooling in her gut.

"Klaus," she whispered.

When his thumb brushed the underside of her breast, Caroline's eyes shot open. She felt warmth dribbling down her jaw. She gasped at the sight of her in the mirror, reflecting blood running down her chin, her fangs peeking out of her pink, bruised lips.

At the sound of her surprise, Klaus raised his head and saw their reflection. He cocked one eyebrow. "That is what I love about you, Caroline. You are so transparent. You never make me guess."

He spun her in his arms. Her fingers flew to the corner of her mouth, anxious to wipe away the blood. He looked down at her, at the blood on her face, like she was the loveliest creature he had seen. He grasped her wrist and brought her bloodies fingers to his lips, a teasing tongue making its way out and wrapping around her forefinger, cleaning off the mess. Then, he brought another finger to his mouth, sucking off the blood; then another, and another.

When he released her hand, she rested the warm, wet fingers on his chest. When he moved closer to her, she reached the same hand up and clung to his neck. His lips closed over hers, and Caroline tasted her own blood's flavor exploding in the recesses of her mouth.

"You are addicting," he told her when he lifted his head, looking deep into her eyes. "You had better plan for forever, love, because you've set me off on a path doomed to follow you for eternity."

She may be a new vampire, but Caroline knew love, and she knew men. Eternity was as long as love lasted. Eternities ended when love faded.

She wondered exactly the many eternal loves that Klaus had claimed. Surely for a thousand years, there would have been a handful.

The thought stung just a little bit, but when you had forever to live, and a heart that never died, you learned to accept that pain and happiness came hand in hand.

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Klaus," she teased lightly instead.

His brows furrowed, but before he could address her she turned around and walked forward into the house. She turned and glanced at the direction where she had danced with him, nervous and brave at the same time, cautious but captivated. She glanced back at him, and noticed him hanging her coat onto the rack.

He probably already thought she was a mess, discarding her coat on the floor like that. She had an excuse. Her lips still tingled with it.

The door behind Klaus swung open. For a split second Caroline had an urge to rush to him, fearing that Silas had returned. It did not escape her notice that his hands fisted at his sides. "Stay there," he commanded tersely.

Once they were certain there was no threat, over a cup of coffee maybe, she would let him know she was not one of his hybrids at his command.

Rebekah entered the house like royalty, knowing she belonged, clear that everything in her path was hers. She seemed surprised at Klaus' presence near the doorway. Ever observant, her attention turned to Caroline. She looked back at her brother. "What is she doing here, Nik?" she demanded. When Klaus did not respond quickly enough for her, Rebekah flashed and stood in front of Caroline with her arms crossed over her chest. "Why are you here?"

Caroline's eyebrows rose. Hadn't she just been talking to Klaus about exactly this? It was hardly a secret. Rebekah abhorred her.

"You don't have to demand an answer from my guest, Rebekah."

Rebekah's eyes narrowed. "Are you going to give her the cure, Nik?"

"Whether I do or do not isn't any of your business."

"It's not fair. I was the one who went in search for it! I had to work with Elena for it, hand to sit in a diner with both Elena and Katherine. Do you realize how bloody demanding that is? I am the one who needs it."

Caroline felt the urge to appease her, if only because she seemed overly emotional about a subject that was nonexistent. Klaus walked towards the two of them, but was hardly making an effort to pacify. "I assure you, Rebekah-"

Klaus caught her arm, then shook his head once. "Caroline is here at my request."

"If you turn her human, Nik, I swear to God I will end her," Rebecca threatened tearfully.

At those words, Caroline's vision blurred as Klaus flashed right before her and within a split second Rebekah was pressed down on the chair with her brother towering over her. "That is the last bloody time I will listen to your petulant whining about her, sister. And the only time I will allow a threat from you."

Caroline sighed deeply, then made an effort to pull Klaus from his sister only to release his arm when she registered that his strength would not allow him to budge. "Klaus-"

Given that her brother did not seem to be loosening his grip, Rebekah threw a pleading look at Caroline.

"Look, Rebekah, I will never take that cure. Your brother knows that. We may not see eye to eye all the time, but I am not competing with you for this." And then she swatted Klaus' arm. "Can you let her go?" Caroline said, insistent. "That's beyond ungentlemanlike conduct."

"You didn't seem to have a problem with this response earlier today."

"Are you really comparing your response to Silas with acceptable treatment of your own sister?" Caroline snapped.

There were a few heartbeats of dead silence. Caroline could see Rebekah's eyes tearing up from the humiliation and disbelief, if not exactly physical hurt. And then, when Klaus' glare turned to her, Caroline met his gaze head on. "Did you just say ungentlemanlike?"

"I did!"

"Did you really expect gentlemanly manners from a killer like me?"

"You're not so bad," she responded with a small smile, remembering her earlier reflection. When he wanted, he could be anything.

"Are we really rehabilitating my image, love?"

"If you release your sister, maybe we can start."

Klaus released his sister, who stood up quickly and rubbed her neck. Klaus muttered, with his gaze never leaving Caroline's, "A gentleman deserves to be thanked, Rebekah."

Rebecca huffed. "What is going on, Nik? I deserve that cure. You know how much I want it."

"I am not planning to take the cure, Rebekah," Caroline assured her. "I like who I am. I'm not perfect-far from it. But believe me, I am more at peace with myself now than I ever was as a human." She looked at Klaus, who regarded her with quiet pride. "Just ask your brother."

"Then what are you doing here?" Rebekah repeated, confused.

For the first time, Caroline seemed almost embarrassed. She glanced up at Klaus. "Don't look at me, love. I've told you that you that you don't need to explain your presence here."

Caroline rolled her eyes, then shook her head. "Really, Klaus? You're leaving me hanging out to dry?"

The corner of his lips curved upwards.

"If I was holding anything, I would throw it at you."

He threw his head back and laughed heartily.

Rebekah turned to her brother, and then to Caroline. Rebekah's eyes widened. Caroline shook her head. Sometimes she forgot that Rebekah's life ended young, and that living for a thousand years did not necessarily mean you continued living-especially when you never made your peace with immortality.

When Rebekah made a face, Caroline raised her eyebrows. "You don't need to tell me," Rebekah told her. "Just make sure to let me know when Elijah gets here." Rebekah abruptly turned and walked towards the staircase to make her way to her room.

Klaus waited until he heard the door to his sister's room close behind her. He turned to Caroline. "She is not getting her hands on that cure."

"Have you spoken with her?" Caroline asked.

He shook his head. "It is not up for discussion," he answered. "You heard Silas. He will never leave us alone until he gets what he wants."

"Is that really your reason, Klaus?" He glared at her. Klaus turned away and walked away. "Hey!" Caroline called out. Her voice hardened. "You told me once never to turn my back on you. If you really want to give us a chance, then you need to give me the same respect you expect from me."

He stopped, but did not turn around. His back was tense and straight. When he rested her hand on his back, he flinched.

Her voice gentled. "I will not ever need that cure. You've said yourself you won't take it. I will help you find a way around Silas, Klaus. If we need to, we'll pull a Katherine, and run from the big bad monster for five hundred years."

He sighed. "So you'll run away with me."

"We'll run away and see the world together, just like you offered when you made me live again," she assured her.

He turned around and faced her. "As tempting as that is, love, do you truly think I will hand over that potion for her to kill herself?"

Caroline nodded. She rested her forehead on his chin. "I knew you would say that." She then looked up at him. "And if I were Rebekah-"

"Don't put that image in my head, love, or forever will be rather uncomfortable."

While something in her stirred at the promise that was irrevocably tied to the word forever, she did not take the bait. She cupped his face in her hands. "If I were Rebekah, and all I knew was that my brother does not want to give me what I wanted most in the world, I would feel so much better if I found out it was because you didn't want to lose me."

"I truly love you. You know that, don't you?"

"And you love Rebekah. I suggest you let her know," she told him.

"You are not making life easy for me," he told her. "Any other time I would have just driven a dagger into her heart and let her sleep until the bloody cure didn't exist anymore."

"You wanted me in your life, Klaus," she said with a smile. "You tell me when you decide I'm more trouble than I'm worth."

"Never," was his answer. "I'll talk to her."

"Promise?"

"I'm not exactly running around for a dagger, am I, love?"

Her smile grew brighter, and she could not figure out how to tame the expressive emotion overwhelming her. She was right. Anyone capable of love was capable of great change, and her heart blossomed with pride knowing that she-Caroline Forbes, whose life was filled with questions about her worth and sacrifices made to be even a little bit worthy of affection-was the reason that Klaus could even make an effort to change.

"You have a bright and lovely smile, Caroline. You make me want to live inside of you."

And she knew he was being appreciative, being loving and kind and good. But in those seconds after the words fell from his tongue, Caroline lowered her lashes and relished the thrill that those simple words brought home. She dropped a kiss on the corner of his lips, and as lightly and playfully as she could, so that he could not tell just how much of an invitation his words communicated to her, she teased, "Talk to Rebekah, and then come find me."

"When I do, you had better be waiting for me."

She watched as he made his way to the staircase. She released a long held breath. When he was gone, Caroline hurriedly searched for her phone and dialed for her friend.

"Bonnie," she said quietly, "I need your help. Do you still have any access to Shane's research on Silas?" Caroline listened intently, then nodded. "Tomorrow morning. I'll meet you there."

She then looked up at the empty staircase, glad that it seemed that Klaus was taking his time with Rebekah. She walked over to the door and wondered how wise it would be to take a walk outside and release some of the weight on her shoulders. A walk in the brisk cool night always helped her. She hesitated when she reached for the doorknob.

This was silly.

She had been walking in Mystic Falls way before Klaus or any of his family members came here. She had been walking at night in Mystic Falls even before the Salvatores came along. She had never been a helpless female, and she wasn't going to start now when she was stronger than she had ever been in her entire life.

Caroline pulled the door open and stepped out into the night. The cool breeze played on her cheeks. She had been walking for some time when she realized she had forgotten her coat, abandoned as it had been when she and Klaus were wrapped up with each other earlier. "Dammit," she muttered. Caroline turned around to return. She turned the corner and got within sight of the manor.

To find Klaus standing on the porch with a small, soft smile.

"Hey," she greeted first as she neared.

"Hello, Caroline," he replied.

Caroline paused. Her brows furrowed. "How did it go?"

"I would rather talk inside," he told her. She moved forward, walking towards him. When she stepped up and stood beside him, he leaned forward and pressed his lips on hers. "I was just waiting for you to come back."

Caroline closed her eyes and received the kiss, did not press back in return. When he lifted his head, she met his gaze. "Have you been waiting long?"

"Ages," he told her, his voice thick. She wondered how he could sound so truthful, so sincere. Maybe this was his true power, which fooled even someone so powerful. "But I knew you were coming back, so I waited."

Caroline smiled, then turned to the door. His body, pressed at her side, was warm and inviting. She twisted the handle. The moment the door swung open she stumbled into the house, in her hurry tripping over herself, landing painfully on her hip.

She glared back up at him. "You are not invited in," she stated firmly.

His head cocked to the side. Her skin crawled at the sight. His eyes sparked as he looked at her in surprise and delight. "You pulled yourself out."

"I was never in, Silas," she threw back at him. Because when Klaus said he would search for her, he would never be caught waiting. Klaus took; Klaus strove; Klaus found.

He crouched down until even while she was sprawled on the floor the two of them were almost at the same level. She wanted to squirm away farther from him, but she stayed. He was never going to see her weakness, was never going to recognize from her actions how much it frightened her when he wore Klaus' face, how much it would shatter her if he so much as hurt her while being him.

What she did not realize was how vulnerable she was. When his hand closed over her ankle, Caroline registered belatedly that her left foot remained partly outside. In her terror she screamed, high and loud and endless.

And then with one sharp jerk, she slid out of the manor and onto the porch, her hip throbbing and she felt that her bone has been displaced by the brutal force. She used her other leg to kick him away to no avail.

And then his hand clasped over her mouth, cutting her off mid-scream. "I know who you are," he rasped into her ear, chilling her with the stark contrast from the last time those same lips brushed into the back of her ear. _I am not who you think I am._ Her eyes were wide as she struggled to suck in air for another scream. "Were you this terrified, my heart, when you drew your last?" And then, Caroline watched as his eyes changed in front of her. From Klaus' familiar eyes, he turned and she looked into somber steel gray eyes. "I wished for two thousand years that I was there to take your fear away." In that moment, there was nothing evil in his regard.

Only regret.

And then, she felt his other hand close over her eyes. And her panic subsided. Her body grew heavy.

"Everything I have done; everything I shall ever do..." His voice pierced through the darkness.

And her whole world fell away.

~o~o~o~


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3**

The marketplace buzzed with the activity of trading that could only be seen in an oasis such as Palmyra, Bride of the Desert, right in the path of the Silk Trade route that brought spices and cloth and jewelry and magic that came straight from other worlds. Caroline found herself laying out wondrous pieces like chandelier earrings and ivory combs, mirrors surrounded by pearls and necklaces too weighty to doubt its composition.

"Caravan!" someone called out.

All of a sudden the crowd around her was frantic. Young boys hauled sacks or spices and pulled them closer to the pathway. Rolls of fine carpets unrolled to display the fine craftsmanship that created the intricate patterns on the matting.

She adored these days. When caravans came, she relished the trade. Strange people in fancy, foreign clothing. Quick alien tongues. The piqued curiosity that brought newcomers to her wares.

Only months before she had been closed off from the world, unable to explore, seeing the same three faces day in and day out. Caroline reached for the leg on the floor and shook. It was to her that Caroline owed her freedom. She nudged the young woman laying down on the rug. The brunette sat up and peered outside their stall.

"New folks," she muttered. She grabbed a pouch from the corner and moved some of Caroline's wares, then laid out her own runes.

"Are you going to peddle stones, sister?"

The other woman grinned. "No, Rena." At the sound of the name, Caroline immediately felt comfortable with it. Right now, that was who she was. The identity blanketed her cozily. "I am peddling the future." Her sister turned to the young man standing right across from them, watching them closely. She waved him over. "Silas, will you sit with us, that these strangers shall see a good man with faith in my gift of sight?"

In the corner of her mind, Caroline recognized the same, knew she should be wary. Yet the young man had kind eyes and seemed eager to please. He hurried towards them and took his position on the ground right in front of the stall. He looked up at her, "Nothing shall make me a happier than to be within the presence of such beauty." His gray eyes were somber, and Caroline swallowed at the sight. Always, he seemed so deep in thought, like he knew so much more about the earth and the skies than any one of them.

In return, her sister exclaimed, "That is why you, of all my friends, are the tightest to my heart."

Caroline gave a small uncertain smile. It helped not looking too long. Silas and her sister always seemed to have such fine understanding, and having witnessed at least once what power her sister wielded, and how it benefited them when she unleashed her magic and freed them, Caroline knew better than to ask and be grateful. She looked up eagerly at the gates, for the waiting caravan.

Silas assured her, "Rena, you are certain to sell all this if you bestow your smile on anyone. You shall enchant them."

"Thank you for the kind words," she murmured. In truth, despite the man's kindness, knowing how much of her skills her sister found when she met Silas scared her. Either way, selling two or three would be enough to put food on the table for a week. Mayhap she could trade a comb for one or two pouches of the sweet sour dried yellow fruits that came by the trade route every few months. It would be a lucky trade indeed.

Her sister made quite a show of reading Silas' palm. Soon enough she sent the man on his way and Caroline was soothed somewhat. As wives and daughters passed by her stall and touched her goods, Caroline successfully traded a pin for a map of the charted world.

"Staring at that drawing would sure calm a grumbling belly, Rena."

Caroline looked sideways at her sister. "I know it is not practical, but I like it."

"Why?" came the disbelieving question.

"I like knowing how much is out there, outside the city gates," Caroline said dreamily. "Not that I would ever dare, or ever could."

As she pored over the ink on the page, where it indicated bodies of water and long expanses of mountains, she felt eyes on her. Slowly she raised her head, noticing a hooded figure make its way among the throngs of buyers from the caravan. He walked down the dirt path.

As he grew closer, closer, her eyes were drawn to him. His face was shadowed by his hood, and she could not make out his features.

She may have noticed Caroline's attention on the man. "A look into your future," her sister called out. "A precise look into what is to come, all from the great and powerful Qetsiyah."

The stranger paused. Caroline felt a tingle in her spine. Her eyes widened. "Qetsiyah," she whispered. She turned to the brunette. She was of slight build, perhaps only a year older than she was when she died. This was the woman that struck fear into the hearts of so many that knew the story of the first immortal.

And she was a girl-a girl who, from what she remembered of the memories she had, used her power to help her sister escape a life of enslavement.

The man shuffled forward, then he dropped the hood of his robe. Caroline felt her entire world slow down. His dark blond hair gleamed in the sunlight.

"Can you truly?" he asked with a small, teasing, lopsided smile.

He took her breath away.

It did not make sense. Whatever Silas had done to her on that porch truly threw her for a loop. Klaus lived a millennium after all this. There was no way Klaus was right there with Silas and Qetsiyah.

"Tell me, Qetsiyah," he said gently, his eyes gleaming as he glanced at Caroline before turning to her sister, "what is in my future?"

Her sister nodded. "A single antoninianus coin is but a small price to pay for an eye to tomorrow."

"Ah, then I regret I must remain blind, Qetsiyah." He picked up a solid silver bangle from Caroline's wares, her very favorite out of all of them. "I fear my coin must be spent on a thing of beauty. There are far too few of them in the world."

He dropped a denari in front of her.

"This is too much," she told him. She searched for a smaller currency to give him a bit of change, but no one had paid her in coin as yet but he.

"You deserve it all."

She raised an eyebrow, then picked up the coin. She was trapped in this dream, in this memory-she did not know which. But everything was so very real, and she felt every skip in Rena's heartbeat like it was her own. He grabbed her hand. Caroline raised her gaze to his. He slid the bangle onto her wrist. "What do you want?" she demanded. She snatched her arm away. Caroline noticed Qetsiyah place both hands on the table, prepared to move.

It was so easy to recognize the defensive stance that she posed. Too many times in the home of their owner, before Qetsiyah eventually freed them, her sister took this stance ready to pounce.

Too many times the man who grasped her arm the way he did before, held firm and did not allow her to move away as easily.

He chuckled. "I want to get to know you."

Her gaze flickered to her sister. As they ran, they made a vow that no one would ever get close enough to figure out that in this empire, they were fugitives. "There is nothing to know," she answered. Caroline figured it would be easier to assure her sister that this was not the same. He was impermanent. She was not forced to be subordinate. Not to this man. "How long before your caravan leaves?"

"Long enough," he answered her. "Get to know me."

He was as insistent now, in ancient history, as he was in the present time. But here he was a man. Here he was vulnerable. It gave her a small sense of protectiveness over him who did not know what surging magic was hidden in that slight frame of the woman before him. "I have wares."

He slid his hand into his pocket, then dropped a pouch in front of her. "They are all sold. Now walk with me."

Qetsiyah's hands fisted. "My sister is not for sale."

Caroline reached over and closed her hand over one of the closed fists. "Sister, I would enjoy a day away with the generous stranger."

"Stay within sight," Qetsiyah instructed.

Klaus' grin was wide. He offered an arm, and Caroline looped her arm around his. "My name is Rena," she told him as they walked.

"Call me Nikos."

"Nikos," she tried how it rolled off the tongue. "Nikolaos?"

He raised his eyebrows, then nodded. "Only my father refers to me that way." Before she could apologize, he added, "Yet from your lips it sounds perfect."

The two of them walked together, and to her surprise he was an avid listener. When they passed by a stall he took a small coin and bought her a sweet. Idly she wondered where all the money was coming from. However, Nikolaos had such stories from the Silk Path that fascinated her. He was everything she was looking to see from the caravan stop. In his stories she explored so many lands, and he had a vivid description for every character in his stories he felt that she met every one of them in person.

Belatedly she recognized they had spent a long time together as the skies turned red and orange and blue during the setting of the sun. They stopped by the large pillar where the queen had had an inscription carved to memorialize her late husband. "To be so loved," she murmured, "that those you leave behind would immortalize you so."

"Is that what you want?" he asked.

Caroline tore her eyes away from the tall pillar, only to realize that all along as she looked up he had been staring at her face. She flushed. "Is that not what most selfish humans want-to be remembered, forever and always, after we die?"

He turned to face her fully, and Caroline turned to him as well. He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. Nikolaos stepped closer to her. "Not I," he answered her. "I want to live forever."

She grasped the front of his robe. Caroline stood on the tips of her toes. "You make me feel like I could," she confessed.

Her eyes fluttered closed.

And then she felt the steady rubbing movement of his thumbs pause on her shoulders. Caroline froze. He could feel it, she knew, and having heard how much of the world he had travelled and known, she was certain he knew precisely what the brand meant. '"Nikolaos," she started, in a plea.

She did not move. And then she felt a small butterfly kiss on her shoulder as his lips brushed barely against the scar. His kiss buried in the crook of her neck, and then touched her ear. "I will snap the neck of anyone who tries to take you back," he swore. "You are no longer bound by the trivial conventions of a world that by chance enslaved you, Rena. You're free."

She swallowed. "Thank you," she said sincerely.

"I must confess, there was a reason I stopped at your sister's call today."

She pulled away, clearing her throat. "To be fair, it is quite clear you did not truly stop for her."

He walked alongside her. "I heard what you said about the world you saw on that map, Rena," he told her. "And maybe it is too fast, but I feel that I know you. I'll let you in on a little secret." He stopped, then placed a light touch on her cheek. "There is a whole world out there waiting for you. Great cities, and art, and music. Genuine beauty."

"I know," she whispered.

"You could have all of it," he told her.

She licked her lips. Caroline laid her hand on his chest, felt the firmness, unnatural hardness of his chest. She fisted her hand and grasped his robe. She jerked part of his aside, then when she noticed a sliver of what was underneath, Caroline pressed her body forward to hide it. Her eyes narrowed, and she slapped at his arm. "You're Praetor!"

He took her hand, then stalked towards a large pillar, then moved towards a brick walkway towards the temples.

"You are!" she exclaimed.

Nikolaos pushed her back against the wall, where they could be hidden behind the large column. "I am," he admitted. "And yes, I was sent in here along with many of the Guard to scout Palmyra. The queen is going down, Rena, and so is the entire city."

She gritted out, "If you and the rest of your legion will kill us all, why waste your time on me?"

"I meant what I said," he told her. "You pulled me, and you are the brightest part of this hell we will unleash on that traitorous queen and her city." He glared down at her. "This-how much I am drawn to you-this is real. We can leave Palmyra behind, Rena. I can give you to Rome and the world. All you have to do is ask."

She woke up with a start. Caroline shot up in bed, noting the silken sheets under her hands. Still, at the sight of Klaus standing at the foot of the bed, Caroline held up her hand as if to ward him off.

Yet if that was really Klaus, waving him away would have been useless.

"Did he wear my face, love?"

The term of endearment was so familiar, and the way he said it was so him that she knew immediately she was safe. Caroline flew to him and wrapped her arms around him. His stiff, protective stance relaxed. He returned her embrace.

"I don't want to talk about it," she answered. Her head reeled with the close call she had with Silas, and even more by that dream or nightmare from which she just woke. Did he control her subconscious.

"Did he hurt you wearing my face?" he asked again. "Tell me, Caroline."

She bit her lip, then looked up at him. "I don't remember," she lied. She needed Bonnie. They already knew that Bonnie was related to Qetsiyah. She was integral to whatever it was that was going to end this.

It took long and hard before she convinced Klaus that being inside his home was going to be protection enough. Elijah arrived to pull him away, and Caroline ensured that he had a mission in mind. Silas was getting too powerful, taking on too many forms. They needed to figure out what he really needed.

When Bonnie arrived, Caroline locked the door and seated her best friend. "Did you get more information?" she demanded, wearing out the carpet as she walked back and forth. "We need to know more, Bonnie. He's making up false memories in my head!"

"You mean a life from two millenia ago?" Bonnie prompted.

Caroline stopped stock still. She turned to Bonnie. "How did you know?"

Bonnie handed over her phone to her. Caroline looked at the picture. It looked like a limestone bust of a woman who looked very much like her. "It's a sculpture."

Bonnie shook her head. "It's a funerary marker," she corrected her friend. "From Syria, in the ancient city of Palmyra. It's in the same region that we know Qetsiyah originated. Caroline, if that is what Silas put in your head, I can tell you right now that he's not making things up. It's real, Caroline."

"So he's not here for Klaus," Caroline concluded. "It's about us, Bonnie. We're the reason he's here."

tbc


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: **What a radically different experience I am having writing for this couple/fandom. Very interesting. There is a mature scene here, but I think the scene was rather tame so I am not changing the rating. Let me know if I should. Thank you for reading and leaving a note. I'm sure you all know how nerve wracking it is for a writer whose first story it is in a fandom to learn what people are thinking, especially with the liberties being taken here.

**Part 4**

**Three months ago**

Going through the photographs on her laptop screen seemed like an invasion. It did not matter that Shane was dead, or that Bonnie had access to his documents. The moment that the two of them stepped into his old office and started searching every drawer, every file folder, every hidden partition and every old tome in there, Caroline was almost afraid that she would turn around and find the professor watching them.

Even worse, in the back of her throat she wanted to mutter apologies to people dead for almost two thousand years.

"When do things become public record, Bonnie?" she asked even as she sat on the carpet browsing through an old book. Like many of the things they've seen that eventually mattered, a lot of the text was in that ancient script that only Klaus could read, but there was enough translation scribbled in the borders that Caroline was able to make out what it referred to.

Bonnie raised her head, glancing up at the ceiling as if trying to actually remember. "Fifty years?"

"Sure about that?"

Bonnie shrugged. "At least I think that's when songs become public property, right?"

"I think it's more like one hundred," Caroline said idly, leafing through the book and browsing Shane's notes.

"Either way, I don't think it matters anymore. If we're looking for something that refers to Silas, we're pretty sure we're past any period when information can be classified by a civil court."

"I know," Caroline murmured. "But seriously, I feel like we're spying on a neighbor."

"I'd spy on a neighbor if it meant we'd get rid of Silas once and for all."

Caroline had taken a lot of pictures until her battery dropped to critically low. After that, she had stood to come home until she noticed a full blown photograph of the limestone funerary marker that Bonnie had shown her over the phone. "This is it," she whispered. "This is the picture you showed me."

Bonnie walked over to her side. "Yes," she said softly. "I was stunned when I saw that, you know."

Her brows furrowed when she held it up. Printed and in sharp focus like this, the image was even more clearly defined. The characters were strange, but oddly familiar at the same time. In the space between the time she struggle under Silas' grip, in that period she was transported to a time of memories she still would not claim were hers, Caroline was pretty sure that Silas ruined her.

Because it did not matter that Aramaic was foreign, and dead, and definitely not her tongue.

The letters sculpted on the bottom seemed so oddly familiar that her heart tightened at the sight.

She looked up at Bonnie, forcing herself not to say anything. The extent of what Bonnie knew was that quite possibly Caroline, or someone who looked ridiculously similar to her, lived in the time that Silas lived, and somehow she was involved in that twisted romance that Atticus Shane told his students about.

And that was it. That was what Caroline was going to agree to, because the rest was hers and hers alone.

She touched a tentative finger on the letters, then slipped the picture into her jacket. "I think we should go home," Caroline had suggested. "I think I got enough saved here to last me a lifetime of reading."

And so that was how she found herself sitting in her room, going through photographs on her laptop. She had transferred them immediately, unable to wait for her phone to fully charge. The battery had died halfway back on the road, and she could not even get some juice while driving because they had used Bonnie's car with her incompatible charger.

Caroline accessed the one moderately helpful website that she found the last time she tried to translate the cryptex and tattoos by herself. It was far from ideal. Within a split second Klaus could have told her what it meant.

But she knew, just knew it in her heart, that this was something she would want him far away from—that this was her problem, that this was hers to solve. And he would be far better served never knowing about this.

One by one, Caroline transcribed the letters, chill creeping from her fingers from the very first character and what it revealed. She scrawled the letters on the edge of the photograph and knew immediately why she had never been lovelier than she was in ancient limestone.

N_I_K_O_S

He had created it with his own hands, immortalized her, and here it remained almost two thousand years later. And right then and there she was blinded by the rush of emotions that rose inside her, filling her eyes with tears, choking her. From her room she was transported to that memory of that night when she looked up at him in that city in the desert, the hood of his cloak down, in front of a dead king's memorial. His face was somber, cast against the marvelous colors of the desert sky as the night stole the sun's light a ray at a time.

"_Come away with me," he had pressed her._

"_Spare my home, my family, my friends," she demanded._

"_I am not king, not an emperor," he told her. "But I swear nothing will touch you when Palmyra falls."And then, under the blood red sky, he took her hand in his. "I will protect you. Whoever captures you, simply say my name." Caroline watched as he drew a large ring from his finger. He showed it to her, clearly indicating the insignia of the Praetorus. She looked up in surprise. She had thought him a one of the guards, but she knew enough about the empire to recognize the seal of the Prefect. "Tell them my name, and show them this. Tell them, love-tell them we are getting wed in Rome."_

_Safe harbor._

_She closed her eyes and threw her arms around his neck. In his ear, she whispered, "I shall come to you tonight." _

_When she opened her eyes, she saw him approaching from afar – Silas. And truly, apart from her sister, there was no one in the world that must be truly feared._

_The Roman Legionnaires and Praetorian Guard, the pharaoh, the armies of the old worlds – they were all power and might of this world._

_Silas and Qetsiyah harnessed a secret every night when the red skies turned black, and she knew as far as her sister kept it from her, it was necessary but fearsome._

_She released him, then pulled together the edges of his cloak that had come apart, revealing the garment he wore. When he was once again hidden and nothing but a passing stranger, she told him, "Go. Leave before you are seen, before someone tells the queen."_

Her memories were bleary afterward, and she knew at the very least that Klaus had discovered her before she received all of it.

But there was a sculpture of her image that sat for centuries in the desert that spoke volumes of a promise that was broken and a dream that he fulfilled. That girl had wanted to be immortalized. That girl wanted to be remembered forever.

But just as her gravestone was buried in the desert sand, so were his memories of her.

Maybe those were the very memories that Silas wanted her to have, to make a difference, to fulfill prophecies no one knew.

The image of the sculpture was so real before her, his carved out name starkly cutting. Caroline tossed the picture on the keyboard and shut the laptop screen over it.

Her door swung open. She looked up in tears and saw him standing there, his eyes wide and frantic. When he saw her, the panic in his face subsided only to be replaced by anger, "What the hell do you think you're doing, Caroline?"

With a slight hiccup to her voice, and a hurried gesture to try to brush away her tears, she asked, "What?"

He visibly seemed to calm himself, and he walked towards her. Klaus glanced towards the phone plugged into her computer, then shrugged. "You left my place with Bonnie without indicating where you were going, right after Silas attacked you and rendered you unconscious on my doorstep," he related by way of an explanation for his fury. "Your phone is dead. You will hear a few choice messages from me when you turn it on, so I suggest you stretch your patience and understand where I was coming from." He gave a grim but teasing smile. "Or you can just choose to dump the content of your voice mail completely. It would lead to a more peaceful conversation."

She licked her lips. "No. I'll listen to all of them." She returned the smile. "It would be nice to hear how you sound when you worry about me."

"I worry for you every day," he confessed. Caroline reached for his hand and entwined her fingers with his. She lowered her lashes, remembering as day turned to night when he had slid his ring onto her finger. "Having been alive for a thousand years, I've made my share of mortal enemies. I am not the safest man to love." He paused. Caroline caught her breath. She had never used that word before. Not to him. Klaus cleared his throat. "Now I realize-"

Caroline tightened her grip on his fingers, and quickly cut him off, "I love you." His gaze flickered, his eyes searching hers, as if trying to confirm. "I love you. The way you love me, any girl would have a heart of stone if she didn't love you back." Original vampire or not, Klaus was the worst in holding in his emotions. She laid her forehead against his and she closed her eyes. If she watched him tear up, she would not be able to keep herself in check either. "I love you," she breathed.

And then his mouth was on hers, seeking. Caroline's lips parted and welcomed the kiss. She hooked her arms around his neck. His lips burned across her jaw, and she threw her head back, baring her neck to him. Caroline squeezed her eyes tightly shut as he kissed down her neck.

She felt her bed against her back as he laid her on it. Her legs parted as he rested his knee on the bed between her knees. She felt his hardness straining against her thigh. For the first time she felt silly and young about the small girly bed. He must have felt her discomfort then, because he pushed himself up by his elbows and looked down at her.

"It's good," she gasped.

His eyebrow rose. "Good, Caroline, is not a word that describes me, or the what I plan to do tonight."

She stifled a grin, then pushed on his chest and sat up. He groaned. Caroline shrugged. "It doesn't feel right," she told him, and she could almost feel herself sinking into the comforter. "You and I, here in my bed, it's freaky." She belatedly realized how awful it must have sounded. Caroline immediately moved forward and straddled his lap. "That was not what I meant!" she said.

Klaus leaned back on the bed, resting his arms behind him. "I cannot possibly think of what else that could mean, Caroline."

"No, no, no. You and I, perfect!" she stammered. "You and I-" She rolled her eyes, emphasizing the effort. "You and I are beyond comprehension, beyond words. The way you make me feel..." Caroline swallowed. "But it definitely doesn't make sense here, in a girl's room, in a girl's bed, surrounded by girly things." She shrugged. "I don't know how to explain it."

He gave a slow smile. "I can give you the world, Caroline."

One of these days she would take him up on that offer and ask for the ruins of an Romanized city in Syria.

"But this is your world right now, and I'm in it. And I swear, when we really start, you won't see or feel or hear anything but me." He looked into her eyes. "Maybe next month we'll climb a mountain so high where the air is so thin it will kill anyone who's not you or me, and then right there where we're the only two beings around I'll make love to you in the snow, where your hair will glow in the moonlight, twinkling with bits of ice reflecting the stars. And every time I push inside you, we create the most erotic snow angel ever created on this earth."

Caroline drew a deep, useless, trembling breath.

"Any objections to tonight, right here, right now?" he whispered.

Caroline felt the hot liquid pooling at her center, and she could swear he smelled her, felt the change so warm the way she straddled him. He stirred against her leg. She shook her head.

His mouth dragged over hers, heavily, powerfully. Caroline felt the nick of his fangs on her lower lip, but almost could not care. Her fangs emerged as well in the heat of the kiss, and she found her mouth being pushed gently towards his neck. "Go on, love." The intimacy of their position thrilled her. Without any more questions, Caroline bit down into his neck, drawing a few laps of his blood. The hot blood on her tongue flooded her senses, and she gripped his arms so tightly she was almost afraid she hurt him.

With a nuzzle, Caroline waited for the tiny wounds to close. And then she raised her head and fumbled down to his waist, pulling the hem of his sweater up and pulling it away from his body. She then reached down and unbuckled her belt, then unbuttoned her pants. She pulled away quickly so she could push them off her. And then Klaus followed, lying on top of her. He reached down between them and freed himself.

"You're right," she whispered.

"Of course, I am, love," he whispered back. Klaus pulled off her underwear and tossed them on the floor. Caroline's lips parted, and she breathed slowly as she felt him slowly penetrating her. Her folds parted just as slowly, making room, straining as he pushed inside her hot liquid sheath. Klaus entwined their hands together. Finally, when he was fully inside her, he pressed a kiss on her temple. "But for the sake of conversation, refresh my mind on what I'm right about now."

Slowly, gently, he moved inside of her, guiding her hips. Caroline's mind screamed as she strained, trying to move faster, then following the rhythm he set so perfectly. She was so close, and sensing her tightening muscles he pushed faster, varied the depth of his thrusts. She gasped when an electric spark shot from her core up her spine, whiting out her vision. She came with a start.

Caroline came down slowly, lying in her bed still, her lower limbs hooked around his. "I already forgot," she exclaimed.

Klaus dropped a kiss on her slack mouth. He released her hands and reached behind him, hooking his arms under her legs and raising them higher, changing his angle. When he pushed he was buried even deeper. Caroline's hands flew to his shoulders when the change sent a flame of sensation inside her.

She swore, she never felt this before. Never. In her immortal life, this was as close as she was going to come to heaven. Caroline knew. She came another time, and when she did she wrapped her arms tightly around him and whispered her gratitude. "I love you," she told him. And she knew he did not care about the word being thrown into the wind in the throes of passion. In fact, if the way his thrusts grew more frantic and uneven, it thrilled him.

It was not long before he thrust a final time, pushing himself so deep inside of her and spilling into her. When he came, he came breathing out her name.

Afterwards he lay on top of her, remaining partly in her. He rested his head on her breast. Caroline ran her fingers through his hair. He was hers again. Impossibly enough, long after the world had changed. She would learn how and why, and she was going to make sure nothing took him from her again.

Not her friends, not chance.

Definitely not that wimp of a warlock whose claim to fame was early immortality granted to him by another person. Whatever she needed to do, Silas was never getting near Klaus.

**Present Day**

It was the tiny tinkling sounds of the door chimes that fueled his ire. Without even once glancing up, Klaus threw his arm up and grasped the blasted bells, tearing them from the ceiling. He threw them onto the floor with a muted snarl.

"I hope you plan to pay for that."

He narrowed his eyes, peering with his sharp eyesight until his gaze landed on the shadowed figure in the corner of the small shop. "A pile of excrement is worth more than garbage."

"A tin ashtray from a garage sale down on Fifth is worth more than your cursed life-unless you forget the many lives you wasted."

"You do not have any idea who I am, do you?" Klaus growled. Elijah's heavy hand rested on his shoulder, and Klaus swallowed the next biting words that formed on his tongue. "Restrain yourself, brother. In this, I am afraid that you are the one with something to lose."

"If this coven would not lift a hand to help an innocent-"

"A vampire," Elijah reminded him. "Your Miss Forbes is a vampire-and despite the fact that she seems so full of light to you, she is dark as any other immortal in the witches' eyes." His brother, insufferable though he was in his rigid carriage, always made a lot of sense. Klaus hated that about him. Even as he recognized his logic inside Klaus rebelled at Caroline Forbes ever being referred to as dark.

Obviously his brother was unfortunate that he had never spent the time Klaus had with her. Klaus almost pitied him, if he were not so happy that Caroline was the one person in the world whom he was certain regarded him well above her regard for the eldest Mikaelson brother.

"It does not help that it is you, Niklaus, Legend of New Orleans, the Terror and the Builder, come to ask them for their assistance."

Klaus turned around to face his brother. Elijah glanced briefly at the witch in the corner, and courteously excused themselves, "Forgive us. We do not mean to be rude. My brother and I must confer briefly."

The witch huffed. She pushed away from her corner and walked towards the shelves at the side, rearranging jar's of ingredients.

"You may want to put this other shelf in order," Klaus commented, waving to the display a few feet from him. "This one is obviously within earshot and you would not need to strain yourself to eavesdrop."

"Niklaus!" Elijah exclaimed.

Klaus glared back at Elijah. "What, brother? Should I abide by codes of propriety when the first woman I loved in a thousand years desiccates in my bed?"

As always, Elijah's expression was blank. A thousand years living together, and they knew each other enough as the complete reverse of the other. So Elijah remained, ice calm to Niklaus' burning emotional outburst.

The stagnant warm air turned chill, and then a breeze. Klaus' head whipped to the side, seeing only emptiness where he swore he felt what seemed like the touch of a hand on his arm. _Klaus. _His lips thinned. He blocked the rest of the noise away-first the steady static of the radio, then the various sounds from out in the street. And then he could only hear the rapid heartbeat of the witch. Klaus licked his lips, then blocked it out too.

Until there was absolute silence.

Klaus.

It was faint, but he swore he heard it. He deepened his focus and waited longer, urging himself to hear it again.

A gentle sensation brushed against the back of his neck. His nostrils flared as he sucked in a breath so deep one would wonder if he needed air. The heady scent of incense penetrated his senses-almost like he was surrounded by the Orient. The fragrance was strong enough to bring him out of the hyperfocus, and Klaus registered every piece of his present surroundings as they returned to his attention one by one.

The first thing he saw were Elijah's concerned eyes. Klaus shook it off.

The witch held up her hand in a gesture for a halt. Elijah turned to the witch. "What is it?"

Klaus waited with bated breath. The witch looked at him, then past him to a point just behind him. "Someone else is here," the witch proclaimed. "You brought another presence with you." She cocked her head. "I cannot make it out."

Elijah frowned. "Could it be Silas trying to break out of The Other Side?"

Klaus looked down at his hand, glaring at the empty air around it. His fingers twitched at the sensation. He licked his lips. "I need an audience with the coven," Klaus said abruptly. His brother looked at his askance. "As soon as possible."

"I will relay your request," the witch answered.

With that, Klaus made his way out of the shop.

~o~o~

He stood in front of the open French doors to his balcony. His black pants hung from around his hips, with the ends of its loosened belt hanging above the fly. His sweater had been tossed on the bed. When Caroline saw him looking outside, his arms spread as he clutched at each sides of the doorframe, she smiled. The last time she had seen him exposed he was sweaty and bloodied and she was too frantic to appreciate him. Now, the way his body gleamed under the moonlight streaming from outside, she relished the sight.

Looking down on the city like so, Klaus looked formidable, as if this was where he was always meant to be.

Like he was the king.

Everything she had learned three months ago, everything that Klaus implanted in her head, made even more sense to her. He was more than the son of wealthy landowners. He was the Praetorus in his own right. His bearing was intrinsic, the desire for empire and an army stemmed from a past.

He had walked away from that Wiccan shop too quickly, and Caroline wondered how much he knew.

Instead of staying away, Caroline walked over to him and stopped right behind him. She reached out tentatively and touched the small of his back, where his spine was hollowed. She looked up at the side of his strong neck, saw his muscles work when he swallowed.

Knew he felt her, smelled her.

Caroline reached up and touched the hair at the back of his neck. He threw his head back and squeezed his eyes tight. "Good God, love," he murmured the name of a deity they never spoke about before, "I miss you."

Her heart tightened at his admission, knowing she was the only one who made him feel less alone in the world. She raised herself up on the tips of her toes and whispered in his ear, "I miss you too." And then, when she pressed against him enough, she could rest her cheek against his and she felt the warmth bathe her skin. To her surprise.

Caroline pushed away and touched her fingers to her cheek, coming away with a phantom image of his tears that dissipated almost immediately.

This was why he had left so abruptly.

Not once had she ever witnessed Klaus this way. He had reserved for her huge smiles, teasing glances, banter, anger. But never this. When she came to Bonnie for help and determined she would get to the bottom of their problem with Silas, she never knew she would bring anyone as invincible as Klaus to this. With all the regret in her heart, Caroline wrapped her arms around his waist from behind him.

"I'm sorry, Klaus."

"I could snap your neck for this," she heard him mutter. "I could rip your throat to shreds and watch you slowly die in pain, suffering from my venom." Under his breath, he struggled out a few choice words she barely understood. "I bloody hate you for doing this to me."

She would have removed her embrace, yet fascinated she watched as he folded his arms i front of his waist. She was not matter, so his arms came past and over her arms. Yet for a brief second she could imagine him holding on to her embrace.

He straightened, and slowly pulled himself up from the French doors. Caroline stepped away reluctantly. Klaus pushed close both French doors. He caught his reflection in the mirror of his room. Caroline started.

He was looking straight at her.

And then belatedly she realized he could not see her.

He sat heavily on the edge of the bed, then collapsed back into the thick sheets, throwing his arm over the pillow on the other side. Klaus closed his eyes. Caroline sat on the other side of the bed, observing the expression on his face. He looked like he was in pain. She leaned down and lay down on her stomach, then reached a gentle, soothing hand on his cheek.

And then tempted, Caroline slithered over to press herself beside him. She rested her head on his outstretched arm, her chin on his chest.

"I can feel you," he said into the empty night air of his room. "Caroline, I can feel you, dammit, and I shouldn't be feeling you here." She squeezed her eyes shut, moving tighter against his body now. "I can smell you. You're bloody all around me, love."

She pressed her lips against his cheek. "I don't want to leave."

Klaus sat up on the bed, then stood up and glared down at the empty, mussed sheets. His lashes trembled as he looked at the nothingness. His gaze stopped, and Caroline froze where she was. His eyes went right past her, but should could almost feel him looking right at her.

"Bloody hell, Caroline, you cannot be here!" he yelled. "Go back to your bloody body and wake up."

He breathed harshly. When he had already released his anger, he calmed and sat down. Caroline reached for his cool hand. "I don't know how."

Not another thousand years.

Not again.

He looked down at his hand. "I am right here, Caroline. I swear I will make this right."

tbc


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: **I very much appreciated reading about what you thought.

**Part 5**

**Two thousand years ago**

A hundred strokes. Every night it was her gift to her sister. One hundred strokes from the ivory comb that sat in their wares since the start of their trade. One strokes from the comb that they had taken from the last family that owned them.

The desert air and sand sat in their hair, gathered throughout the day as they lived their lives hidden, on the run from any man who would be suspicious of their presence. It was a hard life, but a life she would be grateful for as long as she lived. The arduous desert and living life from hand to mouth was by far grander than all the days put together when she was owned.

And so every night she combed Qetsiyah's hair. One hundred strokes precisely. And then her waterfall of pitch blank hair, darker than she had ever seen on any other grew shiny and silky and perfect.

Caroline brought the fine-toothed comb down Qetsiyah's long hair. "Do you know what love is?" she asked, her head full of the stranger, the Roman, the one who took her breath away with promises and offering until she made the mistake of thinking she deserved so much more than the utter beauty that freedom provided. Rome. Marriage. A man who thought the stars shone for her. "Sister, is it true love if it meant you will lose all that you are?"

Qetsiyah turned on her makeshift chair and looked up at her, clasped her hand over her wrist and brought down the comb. "No, Rena," was her answer. Caroline sat on the ground before her sister. "It is love if it meant you would find who you were meant to be."

"Even if it means leaving everything behind?"

It was Qetsiyah that nodded emphatically. "Even if it means you abandon everything you knew was true." Qetsiyah slid down from her seat and onto the floor, so she knelt before her. "I was born into that house, Rena. It was all the life I knew. And then there you were, so young, sold into the same place I was. You were beautiful, with your golden hair around your head. I thought you were sent by the spirits. And I loved you like you were my own sister from the day you took my hand." Caroline looked down at their clasped hands, recognized the tension that curled in her. "The day they hurt you was the day I abandoned everything I knew."

She remembered the day like it had happened mere hours ago. In the terrace where she had stood long ago, Caroline remembered the stinging lashes, the screams that erupted from her throat every time the tail whipped fresh skin.

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut in an effort to erase the memories. And then she threw her arms around her sister. "I will never want to leave you," she whispered into Qetsiyah's ear.

"Nor I you," Qetsiyah returned. And then she pulled away and looked at her sister's face. She pushed a golden lock of hair behind her ear, then said, "But you have changed after a day with a stranger, Rena. You have a light about you, and it suits you. If you should find a way out of this life where you are running, where you can never be ahead, where you hide at every turn and wait for miracles to survive, take it."

Caroline shook her head. "I cannot ever be apart from you."

"After this life comes peace, Rena. After this life comes peace. You shall love that place of peace. I shall find you there. We shall always find each other." Qetsiyah laid a kiss on Caroline's forehead. "You and I, we are soul-bound, sister."

**Three months ago**

She sighed at the singular pleasure his hands brought her. With the simple circular motion of his thumb and fingers on her skin. Caroline threw back her head as the electricity burned to her toes. She turned her head to the side, and she knew her hair was mussed and dirty with flecks of paint. Caroline grabbed his wrist as his hand crawled to her navel.

"You're wasting it," she told him with a chuckle.

His eyebrow shot up. "How is this a waste?" he said with a small smile. It was almost tender, but she had always been too positive for reality. With hooded eyes he brought his head closer down to catch her lips. "A waste is a terrible, terrible thing. This, Caroline, is my finest masterpiece yet." Caroline released a long breath through her parted lips when she felt the warm, sticky, slippery sensation of oil paint, linseed oil and his skin massaging into the curve of her hip.

She groaned, then pursed her lips and returned the avid kiss. He lifted his head and Caroline glanced down at her stomach, bared as it was by the undone buttons of her blouse. A tragic mix of purples and yellows were done in concentric circles in what she knew well was completely not deliberate. Yet in the way the paint mixed in and the layers that were applied, Caroline could not help but agree.

It was gorgeous.

Maybe her artistic judgment, limited as it was, just was too hampered by the memories of the sensations that assailed her as he applied the paint.

And she had first thought he would be furious if she went into his studio while he was in the midst of painting. Most artists prefer solitude, he told her in assurance. But he had been alone for centuries.

Klaus raised himself up on one arm as he looked down at her. "You look devastatingly insane, love."

Caroline pulled herself up with a laugh. She sat up and caught a glimpse of her paint-flecked hair and red, bruised lips.

"Even more beautiful than the day I fell madly for you," he added.

Sometimes he took her breath away, with more than touches, with something as simple as being so open and clear and vocal, for never being afraid of showing her what he felt. "The first day you ever laid eyes on me, right?" Caroline teased. Because the first time she was pretty certain he had wanted to killed her.

The amusement from his face faded. "I loved you before I realized I loved you," he told her. "And I knew you were going to fill a part of me that had been empty for as long as I could remember. And the moment we are free of Silas, and he has what he wants, the world is ours."

"And of course, that does not begin until people know about us." She extended a hand to rise.

He helped her stand, because there was a full day ahead. Like addicts on a twelve step program they were going to find those that they loved, those that mattered, and they would confess. "So today it begins for you." His started with Rebekah, which he did not handle very well. But it was the way he handled things.

"Confessing sounds like we did something wrong," she said thoughtfully.

"No apologies," he reminded her. Because he knew her well, oftentimes shockingly well. "Being together, Caroline, for two people who will live forever, is the best turn that events could possible take. We do not apologize for receiving a gift so rare." She smiled as he brought her hand up to his lips. Her brushed a kiss on her knuckles. "I have been alone more years than I can remember," he told her. "I will not apologize that I am no longer alone."

As she started buttoning her blouse, Klaus grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him. "What a shame that you need to hide a work of art."

She stifled a grin. "Would you prefer me to walk around naked?" She continued covering up, and now the fantastical swirls on her stomach from his fingerpainting session was hidden.

"Women in New Orleans parade around bare-breasted in some occasions of wild festivities," he reminded her. "I should take you there."

"Meanwhile, would you be willing for me to walk around letting everyone see my boobs? Bonnie... Elena..." His grin grew wider, and she realized years and years did not change a man's basic desires. "Damon and Stefan..." His smile faded.

The knock on the door was more courtesy than a request for permission. Involuntarily Klaus made a step forward, putting himself a few inches before her, an effective enough placement to put himself between her and the door. Klaus' straight stance relaxed when the door swung open to reveal Elijah.

The older Mikaelson gave a mere perfunctory nod of acknowledgment to Caroline. His sharp eyes registered something amiss in the short attention he gave her. "Miss Forbes, are you here of your own free will?"

The question drew a sharp glare from Klaus. Caroline could see the quick, measured shift of Elijah's regard between her and Klaus. In response, Caroline forced a smile, then rested a hand on Klaus' arm. "I'm not compelled, Elijah," she assured him. And the answer was so direct, so refreshing and unpracticed, that Elijah seemed satisfied enough. "Wild horses couldn't drag me out of here," Caroline added. "Not even the ones that Klaus enjoys drawing." The fond reference softened Klaus' expression.

"Then since you are of able mind, Miss Forbes, it would be best if you stepped into a private salon to freshen up."

Caroline turned her gaze down to where Elijah motioned. When she looked down, she saw the haphazard way she had buttoned her blouse, and realized she had her top on askew. "Oh God!" she exclaimed. Instead of rushing out, she stood her ground but whirled around for a measure of privacy as she redid the fastening.

"Was there anything you needed from me in particular, brother?" Klaus asked from behind her, shifting attention to himself. "I'm sure you did not come all this way merely to gawk at my visitor." Caroline rolled her eyes. Elijah may be the last person in the world to whom the word gawk would refer.

There was a pregnant pause. Caroline could feel the discomfort even though she saw nothing.

"You are welcome to speak freely," Klaus said after a few seconds. "I have no secrets from Caroline."

Warmth suffused her cheeks, then washed over her entire body. And then suddenly, too quickly, the pleasure his words brought were pushed aside by the extreme guilt that overcame her.

But it was unwise to share those memories until she knew more about them. There must be a reason he knew nothing, remembered nothing. All she could do was act on what she knew.

"I suppose that Rebekah has made her case for the cure," Elijah began.

"She tried," Klaus responded, emphasizing the verb. "I am not handing over a vial of poison to my little sister, Elijah."

"How fortunate for you then, Niklaus, that it is I that holds the cure."

"Do not give her the cure, Elijah," Klaus demanded. "Always and forever," he reminded his brother. The thickness of his voice brought Caroline's head up. She noted the brilliance of Klaus' eyes, recognized easily that it meant he was on the edge, that his emotions were bubbling to the surface. "What of forever then if she lives her mortal life and shuffles off her mortal coil, brother? What do you do with forever then?"

Caroline's brows furrowed. Her gut tightened at the look on Klaus' face. She turned slowly, then placed her hand on Klaus' arm. Klaus turned his gaze at her, then wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her to him. Caroline looked towards Elijah. When their eyes met, she noticed the slight flare of the older Mikaelson's eyes, as if coming to a sudden realization.

"You spend forever how you choose, Niklaus," Elijah stated with another nod towards Caroline, "just as Bekah chooses how to spend the rest of her life."

And then he was gone from her arms. Caroline blinked and saw Klaus standing before Elijah, the cure in his hand. "Forgive me, brother," Klaus said coldly, "that I am not as sophisticated or mature as you that you would lend a hand to your sister as she kills herself."

Caroline gasped when next Elijah had Klaus by his neck.

"Bekah lives and dies as she chooses," Elijah advised. "If you were not so selfish, brother, you will realize that she has the right to decide how to live."

"How to die," Klaus spat back. There was a reason that Klaus was the closest a Mikaelson had come to a king, a reason that he was the most reviled and feared. Within a single breath Klaus towered over Elijah, the cure in his grip. "I would rather Silas have it than watch Rebekah shrivel up and die."

"Is it that you are terrified of Rebekah eventually passing on, Niklaus, or you merely wish Silas off your back?" Elijah shook his head. "You are stronger than that, brother, and too vain to simply give in and admit defeat."

Caroline did not dare come close. It was an ancient battle of wills, with two vampires far stronger and more experienced than her.

"Give her the cure!" Caroline cried out. At her words, both Klaus and Elijah turned to her. "I know I'm overstepping my bounds-"

She almost choked with nerves when Klaus' eyes looked hurt, betrayed. But it was Elijah that urged her to continue. "Niklaus has made it clear that he has no secrets from you, Miss Forbes. It goes without saying then you have no bounds to limit your opinion."

Caroline licked her lips. "Give Rebekah the cure," she repeated. "She wants to be human, to live, to get married, to have children." Caroline shook her head. "Grand human experiences that none of us will ever have."

At this, Elijah turned to Klaus. Klaus' eyes dropped to the floor.

"We can't deny her all that in favor of a horror story that vampires tell each other."

And Klaus' gaze rose. "He will never leave us alone if we don't hand over the cure."

She walked over to him finally, because there was no coiled anger between the two brothers. Caroline cupped his cheek with one hand. His stubble tickled the palm of her hand. "Since when does Klaus take the easy way out? If you gave up so easily, I would never have realized how well we fit," she said softly, placing a lingering kiss on his lips. Elijah standing right there be damned. "Give her the cure, Klaus," she breathed into the kiss.

He cleared his throat and rested his forehead against hers. "If he has the cure, nothing will stop him from working to drop the veil and unleash the dead supernatural beings on earth." Klaus said teasingly, "Love, I might need your protection. Half of them might have their sights set on me."

She felt rather than saw the relief in Elijah at what was effectively Klaus' declaration. Rebekah would get her chance. Caroline gripped Klaus' hand and swore, "I will never let anything happen to you."

She left the two in the studio and mentally prepared herself for the reckoning. She got into her car.

Caroline made a list in her head of the people that needed to know. Her mother. She anticipated the questions her mother would ask, the concerns she would have. For all Liz knew, Klaus was bent on destruction. It did not escape Caroline's notice that her mother listened closely to the Salvatores, especially Damon. There was no way she was going to convince Damon to talk up Klaus. Damon was not even in her coming out priority. But her mom had let Klaus in when she was dying.

Caroline was pretty sure that if she spoke honestly about what she felt, it would not be long until her mother accepted this.

"And then Bonnie, of course. She'll put it together soon anyway. Stefan, obviously. Matt," she muttered. Caroline took a deep breath. Tyler. If she could find him.

Caroline leaned down to start the car. When she looked back up, Carolinian started in the driver's seat at the sight of Elijah standing in front of the car, eyeing her.

She hit the automatic lock on her doors. Caroline rolled down the window to the passenger seat. She had no doubt that if this was Silas then the distance she put between them was useless. Still, at least she could tell herself she made an effort to keep herself away.

With a brief look of confusion, Elijah made his way to the passenger door. He rested his hands of the door and peered down. "May I, Miss Forbes?"

Caroline smiled. "Weren't you and Klaus going to discuss some family matters upstairs?"

"I find it is at times quite easy to come to an agreement with Niklaus, Miss Forbes, especially when you understand quite what my little brother is coming from."

Little brother. That was a bit amusing, and she would have genuinely laughed if she was certain that this was not Silas.

"May I come in for a private conversation, Miss Forbes?"

Caroline's gaze flickered back to the mansion, then to Elijah. "I don't know," she declined politely. "As much as I would want that, I have a lot of people to meet."

Elijah's eyes narrowed in thought. He straightened, then leaned back down. With a flash, Caroline found him seated in the front passenger seat. She held her breath and tensed.

"This is rude and discourteous," he started.

"No kidding!" Caroline gasped.

"Now, now, Miss Forbes, I happen to know firsthand that all Miss Mystic Falls go through a robust etiquette training. By how unwelcome you have made me feel, I would surmise there is a reason that you don't seem to want to near." Elijah turned in the seat to Caroline. "I assure you, Miss Forbes, that I do not intend to hurt you. I have never shared this with Niklaus, but I abhor being staked and carted around in a box, no matter how luxurious the coffin is."

The simple words were endearing enough that Caroline relaxed in her seat. "Elijah," she acknowledged.

"I gather that was in doubt." He nodded. "Silas has been hounding you then, as much as he has been hounding my brother?"

Perhaps more. Perhaps less. She was certain after seeing all those memories that whatever Silas was after had more to do with her, whatever vengeance he would take would involve her more than Klaus. She preferred it that way. At least she had Bonnie unwavering at her side.

"Silas is a menace and he's going down."

"You are very passionate," Elijah commented. She flushed. "Please. There is no need to be embarrassed. I admire conviction. It is one of my brother's few redeeming qualities." He leaned back in the seat.

Caroline shifted in her seat. She checked the side mirrors, then glanced at Elijah. "Did you need a ride somewhere?"

"No."

"Well, I can't kick you out. And I need to go." She frowned. "What did you really want to talk about, Elijah?"

"Once, many centuries ago, my brother told me that love was a vampire's greatest weakness, and we were not weak," said Elijah.

"Why are you telling me that?" she asked cautiously.

"My brother is in love with you," he stated.

This was not a topic she wanted to discuss with Klaus' brother. "I was aware," Caroline allowed.

Elijah chuckled gently. "He was not hiding it."

"We don't keep secrets from each other," Caroline stated.

"Do you not?" Elijah challenged. Caroline turned off the engine. She counted in her head. And then the older vampire continued, "I have never seen Niklaus as fulfilled as I have seen him today. But he is temperamental, passionate to a fault. I would rather not have whatever you have found with him destroyed by false assumptions."

"You're saying I'm keeping a secret from him," Caroline surmised.

"And he is keeping one from you," Elijah informed her. "But know it does not negate what love he has found with you."

In the centuries he had lived, Caroline was sure that there were secrets to mine in his history. She was still holding her own discovery close to cuff. "Okay," was her simple response. There was nothing else she could say, because the moment she accepted she was in love with him Caroline accepted as well that he had lived longer, done more, and that she would need to make room for his past.

"Tell me your secret," he demanded quietly.

"I don't think so," Caroline replied. "Now if you don't mind—or even if you do—I'm heading out." Caroline placed her hand on the gear shift stick.

Elijah closed his hand over hers. "Maybe I'll tag along today, Miss Forbes."

"What is your problem, Elijah?"

"I have been working long and hard to help my brother find redemption," he told her. "Forgive me if I do not entrust that chance to someone who will not take the time to be completely honest."

"You can't come with me," she said again.

When he remained in the car, Caroline shook her head then rolled down the driveway. She drove in silence, pressing the clutch in full and shifting gear, then the gas. Over and over until they were speeding down the clean, paved road. She almost found it funny when Elijah snapped on his seatbelt then held on tight as if he could ever be killed by something as utterly trite as a road accident.

Finally, Caroline slowed the car to a halt. She put the car on neutral and lifted the hand brake.

Caroline got off the car. Elijah followed close behind her. Bonnie emerged from the caves. At the sight, Elijah gripped Caroline's arm.

"Look," Caroline snapped. "You invited yourself to this. It would be great if you don't disrupt the proceeding."

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

Caroline tried prying his fingers from her arm. "I'm trying to save your brother, Elijah. You don't need to worry. We're not casting a spell to destroy him. I'm not going to hurt him." She walked towards Bonnie, leaving Elijah by the car.

"Does Niklaus know about this?" he called out.

Caroline glanced back at him. "I guess now you know my secret."

They entered the cave together, walking through the dark. Even with her sharp vampire vision Caroline found herself stumbling through the uneven ground. Finally, after almost half an hour of grasping at the darkness, they made their way into an inner cave. At the corner Caroline noticed what appeared like an ancient headstone, and instantly her heart clenched at the sight.

Bonnie took a seat near the middle of the cave, then motioned to the place in front of her.

Caroline sat in front of Bonnie. She looked up to see Stefan step in holding a bottle of water. "Are you sure about this, Caroline?"

"I'm sure," she answered.

"How do you know that Qetsiyah isn't like Silas?" Bonnie pressed.

"I don't know if she's like Silas, or if she's good or evil." Caroline shook her head. "I mean, what's good and what's evil, right? I'm pretty sure a lot of people think all vampires are evil. And there are bad, terrible vampires that turn out not to be awful at all." Caroline gasped. "And I'm babbling." She threw a pleading look at both Bonnie and Stefan. "I just know she will never hurt me."

Bonnie sighed. "This is about Palmyra." When Caroline nodded, Bonnie said, "One of these days you're going to have to tell me all about that, Care."

Caroline shrugged. "Either way, you'll pull me back in five minutes right?"

"It isn't pulling you back that would pose the biggest problem, Caroline," Stefan explained. He handed the bottle of water over to Caroline. She uncapped the bottle and took a deep gulp. Within a split second she dropped the bottle, coughing and crying out. Stefan was able to catch the bottle and he firmly tightened the cap.

"That's vervain!"

"It's strong vervain water," Stefan told her.

Caroline bent over and coughed dryly, heaving as she tried to manage the effects of the vervain. She leaned down on the rocky ground and closed her eyes as the world around her spun. "What did you do?"

"You want to slip in when Bonnie lifts the veil," Stefan told her. "But you're not going to be able to see where the veil is lifted until you are as close to death as we can get you."

For his part, he sounded apologetic enough. Caroline opened her eyes and blinked at the blurred faces of two of her best friends.

Bonnie crawled over from where she sat to where Caroline gasped and choked on the ground. "Just tell me if you change your mind, Care. We'll stop."

Caroline felt the tears slipping from the corners of her eyes. She shook her head. "I need to do this. I just didn't know I needed to die to get to the Other Side." She turned to Stefan, glad that he was here. By the look that Bonnie had, Caroline was sure neither of them would have been able to continue without Stefan there. "Do it," she whispered.

Stefan nodded. He brought over a tin bucket, then dipped his hand in. He hissed in pain, then pulled out a coiled rope dripping in vervain waiter. Caroline mewled when he tied her hands together, then her ankles, with the stinging, biting rope. She could smell the singed skin and realized it was hers.

"I'm not going to escape, you know," she said weakly as Stefan lifted up her upper body to lean against the cave wall.

"You're strong. You're a vampire. Even if your head wants to stay, the moment it gets too painful, you'll want to flee."

Caroline felt the mouth of the water bottle pressed against her lips. Caroline squeezed her eyes tightly shut and then forced herself to drink. Caroline felt the sharp sting at her neck, and saw Stefan's hand come away wet with blood. Blearily she noticed the warm pulse of her blood rushing out of her body, pooling on the ground below her.

"Go on," she heard the urging from somewhere above her.

Caroline was facedown on the ground, her entire body burning with pain. This was how it felt to be consumed from within. It was like liquid fire, molten lava, crawling in a snail pace through her veins.

"There it is, Care. It's open for you."

Caroline lifted her head a mere centimeter, but the physical toll was heavy and untenable. The veil appeared like some ultrathin sheet between her and another side of where she was. Caroline saw a small clearing where a robed figure stood. It was the hand of a woman that extended towards her.

And then she was strong, so strong and powerful. Caroline stood and walked towards the robed figure. At the back of her hand she recognized she felt so light, and had she turned her head she would have seen her body still on the ground. But she was fascinated with the strange yet familiar hand that reached for her.

"How long it has been," came the gentle voice. "How long it has been since peace was denied you, sister."

"Qetsiyah," Caroline whispered.

"How long it has been until your curse broke." Caroline placed her hand in Qetsiyah's. Qetsiyah pulled her close. "Have you forgiven me, sister, for ending your life?"

Caroline started. She whirled around, then saw clearly in front of her the commotion in the small space. She watched as Bonnie knelt in the center of the cave, chanting in front of a lit candle. Stefan was grasping her limp body, slapping at her cheeks.

Faintly, Caroline heard his voice. "Pull her back!" he yelled. "Bonnie, pull her back!"

Caroline stared wide-eyed at the tableau. She could not tell the pace of time, and whether it was minutes or hours that passed until Bonnie stood up with the candle in her hand. She threw the candle towards the cave wall. To Caroline's fascination the candle broke into two, and the top side rolled back down until it rested on its side at the center of the cave, then lit itself.

Bonnie breathed harshly. "She's still there," Bonnie barked. "She's—she's still there." Bonnie scampered towards where Stefan held her, then knelt before them. "Wake up, Caroline."

And then suddenly in her mind the cave was huge, yawning, so large she was afraid she would get lost. Caroline turned around again to ask for help, but the veil had dropped and she was all alone again.

The dark entrance to the cave then was blocked by a figure. Caroline blinked and then he was there. He stopped still, imposing, crowding the space with his presence. Klaus did not hide his expression of horror at the sight before him. Elijah stood behind Klaus, and stepped into the cave. As much as Caroline had thought him unwelcome earlier, she was grateful Elijah was there at least to bring him.

She never did get around to telling Bonnie or Stefan.

Klaus strode forward and stopped before Stefan. "Give her to me," he said quietly. Stefan did not move. Caroline watched with trepidation as Klaus sat on his haunches. "Get out of here, Stefan, and give me Caroline."

Caroline watched as Stefan released her body and deposited her into Klaus' arms. She had not seen Klaus compel for some time. Elijah watched from his place in the corner. When Klaus turned to Bonnie, Caroline almost wanted to scream at her friend to run.

Klaus turned to Bonnie, then asked, "What the hell did you do?"

tbc


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: **Thank you for reading and commenting. Hope to hear your feedback again.

**Part 6**

**Present Day**

Daylight streamed through the large French windows, and Caroline smiled as she stretched languidly. Not since she was caught in between two worlds had she slept as peacefully as she had that night, curled against Klaus like a phantom thief in the night, resting her head on his bare chest as if it had been just a few months ago—when she had first discovered the marvel of sharing his bed.

But even with the sunlight that she could not really feel kissing her cheeks, Caroline opened her eyes. The cool sheets of the bed were empty. "Klaus," she called softly, as if she would be heard had he been there. She sat up on the bed and looked around.

He was gone.

But he felt her.

Warmth blossomed in her chest.

He felt her. He knew he was there. Her mind reeled with wonder.

He could _smell _her.

For once in the utter stillness of her surroundings Caroline believed she would come back. She had been calling to him for so long, trying to reach him through the haze that separated them. Almost giving up.

But he could _smell _her.

Once she read that scent was the last of the senses to leave you when you died. But they were both dead, and her fragrance wrapped around him. He agonized over it; Caroline rejoiced. He knew.

She stood up from the bed. She was going to find Klaus. She had been lost to him for so long she needed to feel him again, just to keep touch. She could not be lost again.

Caroline caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. And behind her, she saw the figure in the black hooded cape. She jumped in shock. And it was coming towards her, long fingers extended. "Qetsiyah," she recognized. She had gone through, in that split second that Bonnie lifted the veil for Caroline's passage, in that small moment when Caroline could not move, Qetsiyah slipped through.

For her.

_Have you forgiven me?_

Caroline whirled around and saw the figure floating towards her. Her eyes widened. Caroline gripped behind her to steady herself, and then she spun away, running towards the door.

_Have you forgiven me, sister, for taking your life?_

"Stop!" Caroline screamed. "Get away from me!"

Klaus, her mind screamed. She needed Klaus. But he was gone, and Caroline knew he was her touchstone to the world. He was the only one who could feel her, the figure that kept her grounded.

Qetsiyah called to her, but all Caroline could see was the dark emptiness under the hood. Caroline scrambled down the stairs and raced toward the mantle, grasping for anything that would repel her.

The robed figure had betrayed her. She killed her. Her sister killed her. And now she was back, calling for her.

And then Caroline found something, his necklace left on the mantle. She grabbed it and held it, then willed herself to his side. Caroline looked up at the mirror and watched as Qetsiyah glided down the steps towards her. Caroline squeezed her eyes tightly shut and pressed the necklace to her forehead.

Caroline opened her eyes.

And came face to face with Klaus, whose eyes were closed as he inhaled and exhaled. Caroline looked around her surroundings. _It worked. _She was no longer in the home that Klaus occupied in New Orleans, where Qetsiyah was racing towards her. Caroline released a shaky breath of relief. Her eyes brimming with tears of gratitude, Caroline hazily noted Klaus reach up to touch tentative fingers to his lips, as if he felt the air rush over them.

And she realized it was unfair it was to do, but she was grateful of her touchstone and escaping Qetsiyah then that she threw her arms around his neck and pressed her body tight to him. In the emptiness he vaguely turned his head to the side and took a deep breath against her neck.

~ o ~ o ~

Above all else, Klaus had believed in power.

In power, everything was possible. In power he would find the love that Rebekah so desperately wanted. In power he would gain the family for which Elijah still clung to, through the multitudes who would follow him to the very ends of the earth.

In power he would gain control, and he would not be waiting around for hours for a coven. In power he would have everything he needed.

In power he would never be empty.

He woke that morning as if the entire world was right, yet with every step he took towards the rendezvous that the old witch had set, the emptier he grew. He saw nothing save the damp misery around him, felt nothing but the cold air, smelled nothing but old sewers and blood and swamp. Like the night before was the wishful thinking of an old Hybrid well past his time, trying to relive something he had already lost.

Fooling himself into believing he had slept in the night with the phantom spirit of a dead lover in his arms.

In the darkness it seemed real. In the morning, in the damp air, out there where it was heavy and clammy to the skin, Klaus wondered how much he had fooled himself into the belief that he was not alone.

But Caroline was left in Mystic Falls, where she was in a state that no one could comprehend, where cloaking his home with a spell was the only way he could keep her above ground after her mother saw her and Liz was reduced to human weaknesses in spirits and religion that she had wanted to bury Caroline six feet underground.

That, of course, and compelling the sheriff—and if Caroline were awake she would have likely screeched and complained and yelled his ear off—into letting him keep her daughter's desiccated body in his care.

He would gladly welcome her screaming at his audacity of putting her own mother under compulsion.

_Come, love. Come and yell. Come and blame me for the things I've done._

The still air around him shifted, and Klaus knew what changed with a clench of his dead heart.

All around him. He swore he felt her breathe, like the sweet taste of her lips was just within reach. Thought she was right there and all he needed to do was _see._

The intrusion was unwelcome. The anger stirred in his belly, tamped down by the part of him the still recognized his remaining connections.

The sun was high above their heads now, and Elijah stepped into the clearing. "It seems apparent, brother, that the witches will not show today."

They would not come. That much Klaus gathered on the fourth hour from their designated appointment.

Powerless.

With power no one would have dared cross him by agreeing to a rendezvous and not fulfilling the meet. Yet Klaus was not the most powerful one here, and he was at the mercy of witches.

He abhorred the very notion. And he loathed having his brother witness his failure.

"Leave, Elijah," Klaus growled.

Elijah swore, "I will knock on the door of every witch in this old city until we have another opportunity to meet the coven."

It stung, because the offer was simple, direct, and Klaus felt a clench in his chest that had nothing to do with anger or longing but of something else entirely foreign to him. "I have no use for you, Elijah. If need be I will drench the entire city in blood until the witches have no choice but to do my bidding."

"Despite this turn, Niklaus, remember it was with our own hands that we built this city. I cannot stand by and act powerless against witches," Elijah told him.

Klaus gritted, "How do you think I feel, brother, that I come begging at the door of a coven for a sliver of hope that they can wake her?" He felt the warm air settle on his nape. "So leave, Elijah." The last came in the voice of a plea, it seemed.

"I made the mistake of leaving once," Elijah said quietly.

And there it was. Hanging between the two of them. Finally.

"That is why I cannot abandon you in this quest, brother, no matter how much you demand it." Elijah emphasized his point with firm gestures of his hand. "I was there, and I left. I could have come with them, learned about what they would attempt." Klaus locked his jaw. Because now it was out, and it was Elijah who spilled. And he had remained silent, managed his temper, tried to keep the wolf inside of him at bay. Elijah continued, "I could have stopped it." Klaus did not open his mouth to deny a word. "You blame me," Elijah concluded.

"I blame you," Klaus acknowledged, "because you were there and I was not." He licked his lips. "And I blame the witch, for playing at a spell she was too ignorant to use. I blame Stefan, for playing a part in killing her."

And a pause.

"I blame Caroline, for her utter stupidity," Klaus continued.

His throat tightened when he felt the ghostlike arms wrapping around his waist.

"I blame myself for being consumed and distracted I never saw this," he admitted. "I blame myself I forgot that I can never let myself be too happy, because it's never going to last."

Elijah came forward, and gripped Klaus by his nape. Elijah rested his forehead against Klaus, then met his gaze. "I failed you," Elijah declared. "But I will make it up to you, brother."

"Then leave me to deal with this," Klaus pushed, his eyes burning into Elijah.

"I will leave you, and you will bring Miss Forbes back and into the family. Bekah's turned around seeing you this way, Niklaus."

Klaus nodded. Elijah patted him heavily on the back.

"I shall stand guard over your heir, Niklaus, and I will take it upon myself to ensure the wolf-girl is safe from your enemies until she comes to term."

Klaus' eyes filled. The phantom embrace around him released. The stirring fragrance around him dissipated. And then his brother was gone. Klaus threw back his head and drew a deep breath.

Swamp, the humid air, the wet grass.

And not a scent of her.

~ o ~ o ~ o

Caroline pushed open the door and found herself staring at the long corridor. She was in the New Orleans house again, but the corridor was unfamiliar. Her brain whirled. She turned around and found herself facing another door. She turned her head to the left, and it was another door.

_An heir._

The door was locked. Caroline used all her vampire strength to kick it down. When the door swung open, she saw a long corridor, exactly the same as the one she just turned away from.

_The wolf-girl._

Caroline started racing down the corridor, her hair whipping behind her, some of it caught at her cheeks, stinging. And then she picked up the pace, faster, faster, faster. Caroline's thighs and calves screamed at the tension of her overworked muscles. She reached up with her hands to wipe her wet cheeks, could not believe she was crying.

Over this.

She glanced down and noticed her hands came away wet with blood.

Glancing down at her feet, she saw her boots give way to leather straps, to sandals. Underneath her the mahogany floors fell away and her feet hit cobbled and sandy streets. Caroline raced towards the empty coliseum. She had seen them come this way, and she had to know. Silas had made his way towards them, and Caroline could not tell what he had seen.

She breathed harshly and pressed herself behind the column. In the shadows behind the large, towering pillars, Caroline watched as her sister dropped her cloak to the ground. Qetsiyah's black hair was loose, blowing gently at her back. Her sister opened her eyes, and Caroline gasped at the sight of her eyes—black consumed the whites around them, and looking into those eyes were like looking into the very depths of a bottomless well.

The full moon shone above them. Qetsiyah held out her hands to Silas, who took them and gripped them, threw his head back and opened his mouth wide, as far wide as his jaw would allow.

Caroline clasped a hand over her mouth. She swore the moon turned blood red for a moment, pouring down the color into the world as if bleeding out into empty gold. The red drenched down and poured into Silas' gaping mouth. Her entire body trembled. Black smoke rose from Qetsiyah's eyes, draining the color then the blackness seeped into Silas' every pore.

And then finally, Silas fell onto his hands and knees, drenched and shaking to his core.

Caroline watched, fascinated, paralyzed. Qetsiyah released Silas' hands and then, as if she was part of the earth, she turned her head and met Caroline's gaze. The color returned to her eyes. Qetsiyah moved towards her, and Caroline stepped backwards once. She gasped when all of a sudden Qetsiyah stood before her.

"Go home, Rena."

"What have you done?" she choked out. "Silas-" Caroline glanced back at the young man, who now laid his body down on the ground. "Is he hurt, sister?"

"Rena, you have no place in matters so dark," Qetsiyah told her. "Go home."

"No," she replied firmly. "Silas is hurt. We need to call for help."

Qetsiyah grabbed Caroline's hands. Caroline jerked back as she felt the surge of energy thrumming under her fingers. "He is not hurt. I shall not hurt him, sister. Did I not tell you? Silas helps me become who I was meant to be."

Caroline frowned, then glanced from her sister to the man on the ground. "You love him."

Qetsiyah smiled. "And now he shall live forever."

Caroline's lips parted. "Sister, immortal life is beyond any of us. You cannot play with magick so black!"

"Once more, Rena. When he should wake and feel strong, together we shall make me immortal."

"You will leave me."

And Caroline closed her eyes when her sister wrapped her arms around her. "I would not dare turn you, Rena. I tell you, you have no place in the darkness." And she felt Qetsiyah place a long kiss on her temple. "Run with your Roman, sister." When Caroline glanced up in shock, Qetsiyah smiled. "Silas has the gift of sight into minds and hearts, and he has read your Roman. If a siege it will be, we shall survive, Rena. We shall be immortal."

Caroline watched in horrified fascination as Qetsiyah extended her arms and spread open her palms. A rough wind blew from the west, blinding her as the sand rose. Caroline threw her arm over her eyes to protect them from the sting of the sandstorm. The air grew so thick with haze that she stumbled backwards, and Qetsiyah and Silas were hidden from sight.

Caroline ran, but the storm was hard and she could not find her way. She stumbled across the sand until there were no cobblestones on the ground to guide her on the right path. Caroline dropped to her knees. She looked up and above her a horse rose on her hind legs and whinnied.

Her sister was lost.

She would live, if her magick was true. Caroline had no doubt Qetsiyah's magick was powerful. She had seen it and been freed by it.

But taking immortality was a certainty that she was forever lost.

Caroline gave into her grief, and hunched down under the threatening hooves. The heavy weight of the beast's master dropped beside her. A warm hand rested on her back. She looked up at him, and he spread over and above them a large mantle, holding onto the ends tightly, sheltering them from the storm.

"Hold on to me, love," he yelled over the howling storm.

And she did, tightly, shamelessly. She clutched at him as if he were the only one left to her in the world. Remembering what had become of Silas and Qetsiyah, Caroline was astounded to realize it was true.

A stranger that stirred in her all these feelings that rocked her. She was so afraid.

When the sandstorm slowed, and the air quieted around them, Nikolaos stood and shook the heavy sand from the mantle. He pulled on the reins of his horse to get the beast to come nearer. "I shall take you to your home."

"I have no home," she responded, her throat scratchy with swallowed sand. Caroline looked up at him, at his curious eyes. "Nothing to come home to."

And he could see she was exhausted, so with no question he helped her up onto his beast. Caroline had never before been astride a horse, and so she leaned heavily back against him while he kept his arms on either side of her waist, ensuring she did not slip off and break her neck.

tbc


	7. Chapter 7

AN: Please don't forget to let me know what you thought.

**Part 7**

**Two thousand years ago**

In the desert the night was dry and cool, and Caroline settled back in his arms for the relative warmth. His arms around her provided security from the unfamiliar powerful underneath her thighs. Not many had the chance to ride up on the horses of the Romans, and up high upon the beast she would have been terrified save for him. It was easy enough for him to extend the edges of his cloak to cover her, and Caroline in their desert solitude relished what he provided.

How easy it was to simply look up to the full moon clear in the skies now that the sandstorm had passed, to set aside in her mind that the calm surrounding them was in fact a sign that her sister had completed her crime against her nature and traded her very soul for Silas' immortality.

And she found herself weeping at her loss, because tonight she had lost her sister as certain as she would have lost Qetsiyah if the gods of the other worlds too her.

If Nikolaos noticed, he did not utter a word, and for that she was even more grateful.

Soon Caroline saw the few littered burning lights that bordered the camp of Nikolaos' army, and she caught her breath at the large expanse of land they occupied. More and more as she saw the flickering lights Caroline knew at once that he commanded a guard for Aurelian that was quadruple that of Palmyra's entire population, devastating in number even to a proud queen and her allies. Even in the approaching night the camp still was alive and busy, with several soldiers reconstructing pallisades that had fallen off in the storm, or digging a trench just outside. She did not miss the handful on sentry duty, ensuring the safety of the camp as they remained far enough from Palmyra to not so easily be revealed but close enough that one could stumble into them especially as the sandstorm could have turned travelers their way,

She turned around and looked up at him, watching his face as he gazed proudly at the spread. Caroline placed a hand over the arm that held her securely to him, just now finding an eerie peace and power at the knowledge of all that he commanded. Despite all this, how gently he treated her.

"There, Rena," he said, pointing to a large decorated tent pitted at the center, "is Aurelian. When morning comes, and you awake searching for me, that is where I shall be. But I suggest you remain in my tent until I return. By nightfall tomorrow I shall find you a place that is yours in the settlement."

And to her surprise, the words flew unfiltered from her lips, "You shall not have me remain with you?"

And uncontrolled or not, her question brought satisfaction to him. She could tell. He smiled, a pleased one. "Rena, our woman cannot remain in camp. But I will take care of you. Do you trust me?"

She wanted to tell him that she trusted him fully, with all of her heart and all of her soul. One could not look into those eyes and deny the extreme pull between them. Yet Caroline had survived long before he came, and would survive long after he left. Because that is what they were. They were strong and they took control, but rarely did they even last long enough to see through the rebuilding of all that they destroyed. "I do not need you to take care of me," she told him. "My sister and I fared well by ourselves years before your emperor knew Palmyra sat in this desert, within the grain route to Rome."

His eyebrows drew together at the response. And then, his thumb brushed below her cheekbone and caught a stray tear, one that had only half dried in the cool night air. "This is not what you want," he concluded.

"I do not have a choice," was her response.

Nikolaos set the horse down the path. They stopped in front of the large tent. It was another guard that reached up a hand to help her down, and Caroline hung back. Nikolaos jumped off the horse and helped her down. He gave curt instructions first to his men prior to going inside the tent. Caroline remained outside, looking to the guard who had proffered his assistance earlier and had been refused.

Within a second the flap on the tent parted and Nikolaos eyed her, "You are welcome any time, Rena, to enter or remain outside. I shall not take the choice from you."

Caroline flushed at his words. She stepped into the tent, and marveled at the unexpected furnishing in such a place. The Romans truly lived so differently, with their gold and silver on display even in temporary shelters put up on the road. She waited in the solitary privacy of Nikolaos' tent. He emerged from his sleeping quarters with a small leather purse, by the looks of which appeared heavy with coin. At once Caroline pulled away.

He took her wrist and pressed the purse into her palm, then closed her fingers over it. "I or any one of the guards could take you the settlement attached to the camp. There you can pay for a place for the night, for food or a change of clothes. If you prefer it is quite a walk from here, but I would not take that choice from you." She could tell, despite the intensity and sincerity, he was holding back some amusement. "Now had I a choice," he shared with you, "I would that you remained here with me where I can see to your safety myself."

Caroline thought it may have been pride, but she chose to explore the settlement outside the camp. Nikolaos assigned to her the same guard that she had refused, and who seemed to harbor no ill will against her. Together they found for her a place for the night for barely a coin.

It was late and dark, by the light of the fire outside, that Caroline sat and watched the settlement. Fascinated, she observed the life of the women that were tied to the life of the army. In Palmyra, and the house she served before her escape, it was limited what she saw. Tonight, barely hours away from home Caroline was astounded by how real and raw and different it was to truly live.

Perhaps she had heard a dozen children cry, probably a half dozen mothers she had observed carrying their children and rocking them to sleep. The soldiers came and went in the settlement as if it was part of their camp, oft buying food to complement what was served in their camp. There were many who entered tents and makeshift hourses as if it were theirs, and through conversations they heard many of the families were truly theirs, families built on campaigns, with the women following the camp around wherever they went to live close to their men, taking children from one city to the other to the other so that children grew up near their fathers.

And then there were those tents, where the women entertained soldiers plying their trade for a living, to lie there for a coin and some release, women who came out for fresh air and a drink and to sit across from Rena with a quiet regard.

It was the dead of the night when most of the children were abed, when the many occupants of the settlement had gone back to their cots, that Caroline found herself sitting alone with another woman in front of the fire.

"You have been sitting here for the entire night. I have not seen your face before," the woman declared as she sipped the hot water from her tin cup.

"Neither have I seen yours," Caroline said with light humor.

To which the woman did not respond with her own. Caroline gathered it was a challenge to laugh after three men. The woman shrugged. "He has not used you tonight. Do you need a coin?"

And Caroline's lips parted, surprised and amazed when the woman slipped two fingers underneath her cloak to fish for a coin. When the woman offered it to her, Caroline waved it away. "You are too kind. I have no need for it, please. Keep it."

"You have coin to eat? And to pay for a cot?" Caroline nodded. "And you did not need to spread yourself tonight?" The woman gave her a grin that revealed her missing teeth. "You got a good one." And the woman nodded to the mark on Caroline's shoulder, baring one of her own to the night wind. "Hard to find sponsors like that for our kind, no?"

Abruptly, Caroline lifted the fallen robe and hid her slave mark, excusing herself to the woman and rushing back towards the tent where she had rented space. Before going inside Caroline looked back towards the direction of Palmyra, wondering of her sister, of Silas.

Of the knowledge that she was here standing all alone, in the days before carnage and destruction.

While her sister threw caution in to the wind, unleashed her magick to give immortality to a man she loved, cursing her soul but claiming her happiness for as long as she lived.

And here she was alone in the night, surrounded by strangers, unwilling to take at least one leap of faith with someone who was a miracle for anyone such as she.

That was when she decided.

In the dark of the night, stumbling as she ran in the long chiton. It was a long way, but she remembered the path from when the guard brought her earlier that day. Caroline entered the camp, and in the darkness she was easily seen by the scouts. She ran towards the center building, gathered her dress in fistfuls in her hands and once she was at his doorstep she found herself surrounded by guards.

Belatedly Caroline realized how closely his tent was located to Aurelian, how much more important was Nikolaos the commander of the Praetorians.

The flap to his tent opened and Nikolaos peered outside, bare-chested, seemingly having just risen from his bed. "Rena?" He frowned, and she looked at him expectantly. Her hair had fallen in disarray, a bright burning waterfall cascading down her back, her chiton whipping around her ankles in the wind. He waved off his men and stepped back to allow her to come into his quarters.

She stood in front of him, her heart rapidly beating in her chest. He did not speak, in fact seemed to be waiting for her. "Here I am at your doorstep."

The statement was so plain, matter-of-fact, he stifled a smile. "So you are."

"Will you spare us, if I give you what you want tonight?"

Nikolaos sighed, then walked over to his bed and sat down. "Pray tell me, Rena, what is it that you think I want?"

Caroline blinked at him. "You want to lay with me."

He extended a hand towards her. Caroline looked at the hand, much like he offered it to her when she was caught in that sandstorm. Without hesitation now, emboldened, she walked towards and took his hand. She knelt down in front of him by the cot. This close to him, feeling the warmth of his body radiating from his skin, Caroline's breathing grew quicker. And then he drew her hand up to his lips, and brushed a kiss over her knuckles. "You are too young, love, if you believe that is what makes me come to you."

His eyes were sad. But when they met she knew it was only joy she brought to him. She lowered her gaze. "That is all men want." Involuntarily, Caroline reached up to ensure her dress was in place, hiding her mark.

He caught her hand, then bared her shoulder and brushed his thumb over the mark she was so ashamed of. "Because of this?"

And then he brought gentle lips over the mark, bringing tears to her eyes. "Because I am nothing." She was not different, or powerful like him, or magical like Qetsiyah.

His eyes narrowed briefly at her claim. "Then I am beneath the lowest beast, love, because I am enslaved by you." She caught her breath when he leaned down and pressed a kiss on her cheek. "We are not so different you and I," he told her. "Here you are offering yourself for your city. And I am sworn to the empire." He shook his head. "So no. You shall not equate youself to Palmyra. You are worth more than a thousand empires."

"You are no more of free man than I."

He stood from the bed, then once again offered her his hand. He helped her rise. "The moment I laid eyes on you, I knew I loved you," he told her. "Do you believe that?"

"No one has ever mistaken me for a woman of intellect," she said, self deprecating.

But he was serious, his eyes said it all. He tipped her chin up so she would look directly into his eyes. "Humility does not become you," he told her. And he shook his head. "If I were emperor, you would sit beside me and rule above them all."

Caroline swallowed, because for words not so presumptive, for assumption from those not as close to power as he was, people were stoned and left to die. "Nikolaos-"

"Fear not, love," he assured her. "I am never letting go."

**Present day**

He was a storm, rolling thunder and lightning as he crashed into the house.

"Caroline, where the hell are you?" he demanded from the vacant air around him. "Caroline!"

Klaus called out her name and his voice rang out and echoed, and if he was truly all that he always thought he could be, his voice would have been enough to shock her back into this existence.

But he was not, and all that he got from the effort was his wide-eyed sister running towards him screaming at him to stop.

But he had pleaded in private far too long. In private she had come, and now she was gone again. And he remembered his pleas, telling her she should not be around, but the emptiness was driving him crazy more than his hallucinations or her actually reaching out to him as a ghost.

"I don't want any of it!" he yelled. "Come back!"

He upended the table and sent the top glass cover crashing into the floor and shattering into a million pieces. And then his sister was on him, pushing him back against the wall, holding an ash-tipped dagger.

"That won't even kill me," he said.

"It will hurt."

"Should've looked for the stake, Bekah." And then he nodded at her, "Go ahead then, sister. At least let's have a bit of a respite from this."

Rebekah lowered the weapon. "Nik, you are in truly pain," she said in realization.

"Dagger me!" he demanded.

Rebekah tested the dagger, rolled it in her fist. She weighed the dagger and looked up thoughtfully at her brother. "For the first time in a thousand years I've despised you, you are in pain."

Klaus' nostrils flared as he came to her same realization. "Do it, Bekah. Dagger me."

"And spare you from finally being as base as a human, Niklaus?"

Klaus screamed in his rage and stormed away from Rebekah. She sighed. When Elijah called her there he promised to show her something about Niklaus that she had never seen before, and she had gleefully looked forward at least to seeing her brother suffer, given how much he had rdiculed her for her whimsical fantasies of love and humanity.

But this was just pathetic.

Rebekah walked over to the mantle and placed the dagger into the box, then dropped it into her box to hide. She still did not trust Nik with anything that could hurt her. She called the witch in Mystic Falls again, who answered on the first ring.

"Bored much, Bonnie?"

"Your brother brought me here, and he's kept me a prisoner for all intents and purposes," Bonnie retorted. "Forgive me if I'm eager to hear another person's voice."

"What?" Rebekah scoffed. "Just because he threatened to kill a resident for every minute you're gone?" Rebekah glanced towards the stairs where her brother had disappeared to. Her voice dropped. "You cannot leave until you fix what mess you've done, Bonnie."

Bonnie shook her head. "She's my best friend. Don't you think I've tried?"

"Well try harder!"

"She's not coming back!" Bonnie returned. "She isn't here anymore."

Rebekah's eyes closed. "What do you mean?" she asked softly. Even as she listened, she knew she needed help dealing with Nik. She was never going to be able to handle him herself once he found out.

"She's gone. Right after the accident, I could feel her presence. Even when your brother hung around in that room, I could feel her close by. I don't know what's happened, but she's gone."

Rebekah blinked, suddenly sad about the news. It was ridiculous. She loathed Caroline Forbes. Stupid tear ducts were faulty with age. "Has her body turned to ash, or burned?"

She cursed super hearing, really, because the moment the question dropped Nik was in front of her.

"No."

Rebekah licked her lips. "Then there's hope. We just have to pick up the pace." Rebekah hung up the phone. "The witch says she cannot feel Caroline anymore. It's beyond her now, Nik. It's up to us to find help here." Rebekah turned back to her phone. "I'm calling Elijah."

She looked up at her brother, and found him gone.

**Present Day**

She really should not have tears. She was a ghost, for heaven's sake. She could not touch a glass of water let alone drink it. She was going to end up dehydrated and really, how did ghosts rehydrate? Caroline could imagine ridiculous pictures of a saline drip just repeatedly dropping onto the floor.

But despite her ipressive logic, still there were tears. Not as much as there used to be of course, but there were tears nonetheless.

Elijah had made it clear. Klaus was going to be a father. And he could not even be bothered to tell her. He was going to have a family, one that did not include her.

Everything they had, was because he found her to fill the solitude, lightness to the dark.

She closed her eyes. What she remembered, as far as she could, of her old life was turning out to be much better than this one. Except of course that one thing she could not really escape from – Qetsiyah killed her.

She wiped her tears and turned around, and saw her standing there again in her cloak. Caroline stood her ground. She was not going to run away again. What else would Qetsiyah be able to do? She had already gotten the two of them caught in this odd place in between the Other Side and her world.

"I hope you know that everything I did was for you, sister."

Caroline scoffed in disbelief. "He told me that."

"I am your sister, no matter what has come to pass. One day you will remember, that what I have done I have done for you, never against." And really, a lot of what she remembered was similar to what she claimed now. She was so lonely, knowing she had lost Klaus and their connection. Qetsiyah reached up and pushed her hood back, and Caroline smiled involuntarily at the sight of her face. She was as lovely as she remembered, her sister and savior. "One day, you'll remember."

"Show me now," Caroline demanded.

It was then that Qetsiyah walked forward and was so close to her, and despite her earlier fear of her for her own admission of her death, suddenly she was not so afraid to have her so close. Maybe it was because she still thought of her other self so separately from herself, or maybe it was that she looked so much like Bonnie that Caroline found it ridiculous that she would harm her.

Or maybe because she needed her.

"Show me."

Qetsiyah placed a hand on her cheek, and asked her, "What good do you hope it will do, if I show you?"

"It will help me forget."

"Forget today, your present life?"

Caroline closed her eyes, and her tears fell like rain. "Let me remember some joy and take away this pain, sister," she pleaded, whisper-soft, hoping against all hope that she would lend a hand if only as blood payment. "And then wake me up. Once I forget, wake me up."

Qetsiyah nodded. "I never meant to keep you long. But tell me, sister, before we begin—do you forgive me, Caroline, for taking your life?"

And she would soon find out exactly how, and why.

Either way, she was searching Bonnie's eyes, her face, her soul. And Caroline wrapped her arms around Qetsiyah. "Sisters always. Whatever you've done, I forgive you. Now show me, and take today away."

"I cannot take away what's real."

"Can you take away the pain?"

Qetsiyah smiled. "You know how to take the pain away yourself." Caroline felt the feathersoft kiss on her cheek. "I love you, sister. Have a restful trip, and then rise."

tbc


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: **Please let me know what you think.

**Part 8**

Present Day

There must be something in the wind, something in the air around Mystic Falls. It was cooler around him. He did not miss the cold. He had been wrapped in the cold still air in the two thousand years that he starved.

Perhaps there was one thing about spending two millennia with a death wish. Often you so intensely desired death you thought you saw bloody death every where you turned.

Silas strode through the forest, quickly, quicker still-like the hounds of hell were at his feet. Quicker and quicker like everything he ran from fast caught up to him. There had been no trees, no grass, no signs of life in the desert where he last needed to take a breath, but his entire world was never deader. She was around him, haunting him; she had escaped a self-created prison that he had many times wanted to break.

As the first immortal, he feared very little in the world.

He whirled around, and aside from the flash of her dark cloak in the periphery of his vision the forest was empty.

"I am not a prey!" Silas called out to the air around him. Far too long, with the brotherhood, she had made him feel hunted. Far too long she had punished him for the very thing she had a hand in creating. "Qetsiyah, show yourself."

And he could almost hear the trilling sound of her laughter in the breeze. Even in death she would not let him find peace.

"I can give you the cure," came the lilting call. He cursed under his breath. The blasted cure, the cure, always the cure. He had gripped the cure for so long over the centuries. The way to death that she provided helped nothing and no one, merely fueled the burning flame inside him. "Another cure, Silas, to replace the one you lost. I can help the witch take down the veil."

Silas hung his head, studied the slide of the leaves at his feet. To the left, to the right. Move to the back, the front. A small whirl, like a tiny piece of hurricane.

Even as a ghost she had power over the air, like before when the moon bled and the sandstorms rose in the night she turned him immortal.

Studying the movement at his feet, Silas stuck out a hand to the right and grabbed, catching her arm. "Do not bait me, witch."

"Once you were grateful of my power, you begged me on your knees," came the quiet reminder, more powerful than if she had screamed.

Yet he knew his power over her, knew the control he had just being who he was. With a curl of his lips, he looked into the black shadow under the hood. "You see my true self, Qetsiyah," he reminded her. "Reveal yourself to me."

He could almost see the pink lips curve under the hood. And then she pushed back the hood of her cloak. "I see you're wearing your face before I destroyed it. What power you have managed to accumulate, Silas, since the last time I saw your face." She licked her lips. "I will create the cure again. The other side has weakened my powers here, but working with Bonnie I can bring you death."

Silas' eyes narrowed. "Death was never the end. You know as well as I. It was the veil that you created to keep me away from what I needed."

"I gave you what you wanted. Always I have given you what you desired," she threw back at him. Qetsiyah extricated her arm from his grip. "Always, Silas. Look at you-still alive when you should have died long ago."

When she was released from his grip, he took a step forward. Qetsiyah looked down at the patch of black grass from where he had stood. It was life he drained at the roots, his very presence unnatural, his aura vampiric enough to suck out the life from those around him.

"You gave me everything and took it all away," he spat.

"You wanted immortality; you are ageless."

He had been young. Two thousand years later and Silas could still remember her, etched in his mind, golden and bright and just out of reach, standing across from him along the streets of Palmyra. He had been young once, and she was all that he desired, awakening in him desire for much more, more than his own thrumming powers could afford, more than what the time and the world could afford.

And one day a stranger walked along, one that brought death and destruction, and the stranger was rewarded with all he deserved.

"I wanted immortality with her."

And there it was, that flicker in her eyes. Two thousand years, and all the power in the world at her fingertips, more power than any one being possessed since then, and with those words he could prick her.

He reached for her, cupping her cheek in his hand. He touched her, and he could feel the energy in the palm of his hand, leaping and sparking at the thrum of hers. By all the spirits, she was power, all power.

And he could read her, play her.

It was all in front of him.

"Have you longed for me, Qetsiyah, all these centuries?"

And she looked back at him almost afraid, like she knew, but could not so easily shake him. "I missed my friend," she allowed. "You were my closest, Silas."

"Do you want me to die and spend eternity with you?"

"I will cure you. And you can find peace, Silas. I only ever wanted to give you everything you asked."

He moved closer to her, close enough that she had to close her eyes. "Everything?" he whispered harshly. And then he told her, "I wanted immortality with her." Her clear eyes were shadowed. "That you should be so spiteful to let her die than lose me to her was your own sin, Qetsiyah."

She opened her eyes, stared at him in horror when she realized how she had been entranced. "Then let me help you cross over, Silas. There you will find my sister."

He growled, low in his throat. "Do you truly think me the fool?"'In all the years he slept awake, hungered and desiccated, trapped in his island prison, his visions played before him like he had spent a life of life with Rena, allowing his consciousness to be manipulated by his own sheer will. All those two thousand years he lived through the nightmare knowing that one day, once he was powerful enough or found an incarnation good enough, the veil would be lifted and he could die for her.

Only to find her reduced to the same slave to blood as any other.

"I've seen her. You will not send me to find peace. She is not there."

"Silas-" Qetsiyah gasped, crestfallen.

"Whatever you have done, she is alive again."

"Leave her alone, Silas," she said, almost in a place. "Leave Caroline to her life the way you could not leave her before."

"All my starving wakefulness I had wanted to die and be with her, and she is come again to earth and would never find peace."

He could tell by her face, the guilt in her eyes, that she had all to do with the curse that woke her soul. His Rena could not find her peace, and now lived the life of one who would never go past the Other Side. It was her doing. Qetsiyah, and Qetsiyah alone.

He sped to her, close enough for her to step back. "What did you do to her?" he demanded. "Do you not see whatever you have done has cursed her?"

"You woke dreams in her she cannot escape. Leave my sister alone."

"No," Silas declared. "The spirits shall now repay my loss."

"You have your immortality, your freedom. What else do you want?"

He looked down at his hand, raised his palm close to his face and smelled the burning power rising. From her. From around him. From inside his very core the power that lay stagnant for two millennia. Her wide eyes turned to him in surprise. She muttered under her breath, but that she was powerful was thwarted by his speed and fury. Silas chanted dark words, in a voice deep within that rumbled in his chest. He threw forward his burning hand and raised an arm to shield his eyes, pushing Qetsiyah back and bending the air around her figure, sending her back through the slip of the veil.

"Eternity with her," he whispered, "whether on this Side or the Other."

**Two thousand years ago**

His emperor burned cities. His emperor marched an army or several into cities and they razed and destroyed. There were villages to the west that still were marked by the curling smoke rising from the cottages, scorched grass littered with endless bodies. And truly, truly, he was Aurelian's right hand man in his quest.

Bloody barbarians they called everyone outside the limits of their empire, when truly it was they that ravaged and murdered by the village.

Barbarian.

To use the word she ignored the soft caress of his hand when he took her by her elbow and led her into the tent.

Murderer, every one of them.

Yet she could not see it, even when she knew he was Praetor, the highest one of all, when all she knew was the look on his face when he saw her each morning, and she saw each morning how he shaped this block of stone closer and closer to her image.

On some days she wondered what was warped inside her mind that she for the last few days she had come into his tent, this man who she truly knew had blood in his hands. But the morning together, when she came to that tent and lifted the flap to find him waiting with a bowl in his hands. It was some refreshment, dried fruits she had seen brought in through the caravans, quite a treat for the city in the desert.

Sweet and sour, the explosion of the flavors on her tongue was a heady sensation. The taste brought a smile to her lips, one she could not hide and brought an answering grin to his.

"Do I make you happy, Rena?"

The sweets made her happy. They were a departure from the dull taste of bread every day.

At her silence he merely nodded, then nodded towards the cot. She regarded him as she did every day as he shaped that slab, his gaze licking across her features, studying her until she shifted under the scrutiny.

She watched his thumbs move over the features of that stone, warming, flushing, imagining his fingers on her skin.

Abruptly, she answered, "Yes."

And his eyes moved from the rock to her meet her gaze.

"Yes," she repeated, "you make me happy." And then after a breath, she asked, "How many have you killed?"

His lashes lowered, and took a small chisel to her bust. "Too many to remember."

"By your hands?"

"By my hands, my words, my thoughts. Too many for you to comprehend. Too many for me to say in front of you." He carved the lids of her eyes on that rock, and her words from the first day they met teased her memory.

She wished to be immortalized, the way the last king had been. She wanted to leave a legacy that never died, to be remembered forever. Such tall dreams for a slave, but in his hands she saw her face take shape. Her eyes scanned the somber face he had as he recreated her image.

"I do not know how to accept you," she confessed. And then she asked, "Will you spare Palmyra?"

Yet she already knew that cities flourished or wilted at the emperor's will. She had offered herself for it, and to him she meant more than the city. And yet all she knew was that he was in the desert for her home.

"If the queen surrenders, the city is spared."

Her queen, proud and mighty since the fall of the king, was not one to surrender. Yet the settlement was sprawling and far outnumbered the handful of soldiers that followed Zenobia.

"Is it true? Will you keep your word?"

"Shortly before we marched to Palmyra, this Guard went up against Tyana and spared her. If you find a traveler, ask them of Tyana and he will tell you of the celebrations of a city that escaped Aurelian's wrath by the skin of her teeth."

Outside Caroline heard the now familiar horn. Reluctantly he rose from his post and so did Caroline. She watched him silently as in front of him he pulled off the robe he wore and he stood bare-chested before her. She dropped to her knees in front of the chest that sat at the far end of his bed, then drew out his paenula and focale. Slowly she turned around and waited for him to attire himself before picking up his melt and walked over to him. She swung the belt around his waist and carefully fastened the clasp in place.

"Take care of yourself, Nikolaos," she said again, as she did each morning before he left the tent. Each morning she could not know if it were the day they would charge into Palmyra or some other place where the whims of Aurelian would take a murderer so kind.

And he leaned close, as each morning he did, and brushed a brief kiss on her left cheek. "So should you." And then, for the very first time, his warm lips grazed on her brow, and he whispered, "I am not a man of many promises, Rena, and I still remember my promise to you. I intend to wed you."

And then he was gone, and her fingers rose to clasp the ring around her neck.

"Nikolaos," she called to him, but he had left.

The city, her sister, even Silas-all would be spared. And then perhaps if Palmyra did not fall and everyone perished, perhaps there would be time for her sister to return to the gods and be absolved of her sin in magick.

Caroline wandered outside of his tent, to the bustling surroundings of an army settlement full of the morning's activity. In smaller circles around the camp there were sparring by fists and by arms. Caroline rushed over to the tent that Nikolaos had indicated her first night. She could wait outside and he would emerge.

And then she heard the lound clatter from inside. Caroline stepped backwards, wide-eyed. She could so clearly hear the voices from within. She met the eyes of the guard at the entrance and knew she was not led away merely because of Nikolaos, and his open preference of her company in the many days she had come to him.

"What utter foolishness, Nikos, that you should choose to marry so far below your station." Caroline froze where she stood. She could feel the gaze of the guard turn on her. "A slave girl?"

"Aurelian," she heard Nikolaos speak, "I ask for your blessing. The last I remember from your venerable grace I am free to marry as I choose."

"You know as well as I, Mikhael has applied for an advantageous marriage for you, Nikos, which I negotiated from Rome."

"I shall wed who I choose," Nikolaos responded. And then after a beat, one that sent her heart racing, he continued, "As soon as you have blessed it."

"Take Palmyra to her knees," Aurelian dictated, "and then you and I shall speak of your foolishness."

Caroline's lips thinned.

And then the flap to the tent parted and revealed the emperor himself, in his robed glory, emerging out into the morning sun. Caroline stared wide-eyed, frozen in place.

"Augustus!" she gasped out, grateful that the honorific flew rather than any name she could have thought to use instead after the scathing words about her.

"You are Nikos'," was the curt greeting she received.

From behind the emperor Nikolaos emerged as well, looking at her in surprise and caution.

"I am more than a slave girl," she choked out. And after the words had left her tongue her voice grew stronger, because the sand beneath her feet had not swallowed her whole as she expected.

And it was then that Aurelian's demeanor softened, as if he had just discovered the child behind the name long bandied about. She could not fool herself into believing that Aurelian had not known of her, so many days it was that she slipped into Nikolaos' tent. There was no emperor that did not have eyes and ears even on their most trusted.

"Little girl, take no offense. I am certain you are, but you are not enough for bloodline like this one."

Her gaze fluttered over the emperor's shoulder to meet Nikolaos, and saw the quiet way he regarded her, as if she could do no wrong, as if she was so bright and faultless that standing before the emperor and demanding to be heard were not the actions of one so deranged.

And she smiled, looking at him. No matter what it was she had done, or would do, she would be safe. Because she knew he loved her. And because his prefect ring hung around her neck like a talisman.

"I shall give you Bat-Zabbai," she offered to the emperor, using the Palmyrene queen's native name. "And when you have her, give us your blessing."

Aurelian chuckled, then glanced behind him where Nikolas stared stunned at Caroline. Aurelian turned back to Caroline, then said, "Palmyra for Nikos?"

Caroline turned her eyes back at Nikolaos, then slowly shook her head. "Augustus, he is worth a thousand empires."

The emperor regarded her, and she could tell he was rightly impressed by her promise. Her blood pumped in her ears, and her mind whirled with the myriad ideas that assailed her, none of which were viable.

"Then get me Zenobia, little girl, and my prefect is a mere fraction of the payment you receive from the empire."

The emperor turned and walked away, inspecting the small practice battles that lined the lightly paved passes of the camp. The guards posted at his tent followed closely behind him, creating a hard to breach protective wall surrounding the emperor.

And she looked up to find only Nikolaos standing in front of her, his expression warring among pride and joy and anxiety.

"Go," she urged him. "I know what I must do."

He grinned, then pulled her to him and finally laid a kiss on her mouth. Her eyelids fluttered shut, and she relished the feeling that overwhelmed her. "Keep safe."

Caroline closed her hand over the ring. "Of course," she whispered.

She needed to head home, to Palmyra, to the only one in the entire land that she knew could convince the queen to do anything, even to abandon her own city.

As black as it was, sometimes the only way out was magick.

tbc


End file.
